Winter Storm in Western and Central Hillsborough, New Hampshire

Light precipitation began just after midnight on the 16th, with snow in the higher elevations and a mix of rain and snow in the valleys. Steady moderate to occasionally heavy snow started during the morning hours and continued into the afternoon. Rain continued to mix in at the lowest elevations. Precipitation tapered off around midnight on the 17th. Snowfall totals ranged from 3 inches near I-93, to as high as 18 inches in the Monadnocks.

On December 16th low pressure develop near Chesapeake Bay and slowly moved northeastward along the coast to a position near Nantucket late in the day. Eventually low pressure moved into the Gulf of Maine on December 17th and continued towards Nova Scotia. Despite a climatologically favorable track for significant snowfall, the antecedent near surface air mass was marginal for snow south of the mountains. Temperatures aloft were cool and supportive of snow, but rain mixed in south of the foothills. There was a significant upslope and elevation component to snowfall totals when precipitation finally came to an end on the 17th. Due to the heavy wet snow, significant power outages occurred across parts of New Hampshire with 50,000 outages reported.