Wednesday’s nor’easter was the result of a merging of two pieces of energy in the atmosphere. At first, it didn’t look too bad News 12 meteorologist Mike Rizzo says, but once the storm got underway, it intensified offshore developing an intense snowband with snowfall rates as high as 5 inches per hour over eastern Long Island a 2-3 inches per hour over parts of the five boroughs of New York City.

The placement of the snowband and the timing of the storm’s intensification was the hardest feature to forecast, Rizzo says. The snowband’s location would have made a difference of the location of heaviest snowfall. If it formed west, the city would have seen more snow. Since it formed just to the south and east of the city, clipping our eastern and southern communities, Rizzo says the totals across the city varried widely.

Heavy snowfall in the spring time is rare and hard to come by. Historically speaking, late March storms that leave such large snowfall totals across the areas have typically impacted the city for more than just 12-18 hours, Rizzo says. The daily snowfall records for this time of year are below 10 inches for Central Park. These records go back to 1869.

The largest snowfall hit Long Island’s Suffolk county with nearly 19.3 inches of snow in Bay Shore.

Here’s a look regionally. Note how the city splits lower totals west and higher totals east. 

Lastly, check out this remarkable spread of Brooklyn snowfall totals.