Mother's Day weekend cold and snow outbreak

Mother's Day weekend 2020 (May 8-10, give or take a day) featured record cold and snow in the East, including the lowest temperature and second-latest snowfall I've seen in May since moving to Pennsylvania in 1997.

Temperatures Saturday morning left 20 states with readings in the 20s.

Hundreds of cold records were threatened or broken over the weekend and days prior. Here is a sampling:

In several cases, it was colder on Mother's Day weekend than it was last Christmas. Temperature forecasts were so far below normal that they were literally off the charts, at lower than 30 below normal over parts of the Northeast:

NWS forecast high temperatures Saturday, with (color) departures from normal.

Up to 15 inches of snow fell in Maine with close to a foot in parts of New York and Vermont. The major cities even saw snow flurries, which were absent in February, with New York City recording their latest snowfall. The high pressure system that brought the extreme cold set new records in Canada.

Snowfall totals over Mother's Day weekend 2020 piled up in New England and were significant down the spine of the Appalachians.

Snow falls on green leaves and flowers at my house in State College, PA May 8, 2020

Even here in State College, we got some light snow that never accumulated more than a dusting. I recorded 25 degrees at my house. The official station at Penn State hit 27, tying the all-time May record low of 27 set on May 10, 1966. However, the snowfall doesn't beat the May 12, 2008 record that I had blogged about 12 years ago -- but snow was recorded on both Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, this year.

Below is a collection of all my tweets about the snow and cold: