The East Coast was hit with its first major snowstorm of the winter on Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009. The two-day storm, which traveled along the coast from Florida before finally heading to Canada and the sea, closed airports, roads and malls in a dozen states and left much of a landscape of 60 million people snowbound. Record snow fell in Washington (16.4 inches), Baltimore (20.5 inches) and Upton, N.Y., the Suffolk County site of a National Weather Service center (26.3 inches). The heaviest snowfall was in Wintergreen, Va., which had 30 inches. The National Weather Service said the storm gave Philadelphia, which began keeping records in 1884, its second-largest snowfall: 23.2 inches. Even more was recorded in the Philadelphia suburb of Medford, N.J., at 24 inches. Around New York City, the brunt of the storm hit Long Island, with whiteout conditions and 26.3 inches in Upton, a record since measurements began in 1949. Nearly 11 inches of snow fell on New York City, and the storm could be the worst the city has seen since about 26 inches fell in February 2006, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Maloit said. In New York City, some 2,400 municipal employees relied on 2,000 snow plows and other machines to clear the streets.

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