Windy, cold, snowy April weekend in the Northeast

UPDATE: Capital Weather Gang has an excellent article about what may have caused the winds, and a detailed wind gust map in D.C., where winds were worse than Hurricane Sandy and one of the top three events of the last 5 years!

Did it seem like it was a tad windy over the weekend? It was. Winds gusted over 100 mph on the mountaintops and 370,000 people lost power, causing a spike on Google Trends:

Here's a map and list (Local Storm Reports & CRONOS) of the highest wind gusts:

Mountaintops:

Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina: 109 mph Mount Washington, New Hampshire: 91 mph Mount Mitchell, North Carolina: 84 mph

Highest wind gusts by state:

Baldwin, North Carolina: 75 mph Iowa City, Iowa: 71 mph Brandywine Shoal, Delaware: 71 mph Straughn, Indiana: 71 mph Elkhorn, Kentucky: 69 mph Calverton, New York: 68 mph Cape May, New Jersey: 66 mph Washington, D.C.: 66 mph Snowshoe, West Virginia: 65 mph Potsdam, Oio: 65 mph Rockville, Pennsylvania: 64 mph

The late snow was also of note, with up to 10 inches falling in the mountains (we had a dusting here in State College, Pennsylvania, ensuring we maintain the title of Least Snowy Year Ever).

Terra Alta, West Virginia: 10.0" Ottawa, Michigan: 9.5" Paris, New York: 9.0" Milton, Massachusetts: 8.0" (Still snowing) Burrillville, Rhode Island: 7.0" (Still snowing)

Ironically, it was the same day, April 3, 1987, when I saw the latest snow ever at my childhood home in the North Carolina foothills. Several inches of snow fell on top of spring leaves and flowers. Here's what the snow map looked like from that day (feet of snow fell in the Appalachians!)

The winds also combined with the unusually cold air to produce very unusual wind chill and RealFeel® temperatures -- below zero in parts of Pennsylvania!

The cold, and the snow, aren't over yet... in fact tonight could be colder and snow could plunge into the South this weekend!