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The snow that buried Marblehead on Monday was not the soft, cinematic kind. It was dense, wind-compacted coastal snow — the kind that plasters sideways onto siding, frosts windows with a pebbled crust and drifts into hard ridges that reshape the streetscape. It erased depth perception and turned roads into low-visibility corridors where even the town's plow crews struggled to keep up.
The National Weather Service confirmed that blizzard criteria were met Monday morning at both Boston Logan International Airport and Beverly Municipal Airport, the nearest reporting station to Marblehead. Beverly reached blizzard conditions — defined as visibility at or below a quarter mile combined with sustained winds or frequent gusts of at least 35 mph for three or more hours — at 9:15 a.m. Boston followed five minutes later, and conditions at both stations continued into the afternoon.
The storm's wind was relentless. Boston Logan recorded a peak gust of 62 mph, while a mesonet station listed as 3 miles northeast of Marblehead near Children's Island registered a gust of 67 mph. Offshore, a buoy 7 miles southeast of Gloucester clocked a gust of 65 mph. Beverly Municipal logged hours of quarter-mile visibility or less, with gusts reaching 47 mph by midmorning.
Residents hunker down as storm leaves lasting hazards
Indoors, the town hunkered down. Molly Teets and her family had landed at the airport just before 7 p.m. Sunday, returning from a school-break trip to California hours before conditions deteriorated. By Monday, their Ocean Avenue home had shifted from travel mode to sheltering in place with two Labrador retrievers – Hazel and Gracie.
"It's too windy and snowy to start shoveling so we are playing card games and watching TV," Teets said. "Lots more family time after a family vacation."
On Beach Street, the Wolverton household — six children ranging in age from 15 down to 4 — found its own rhythm. Emily Wolverton, 11, a 6th grader, turned a cardboard box into a homemade board game after searching online for craft ideas, and her brother Jacob, 4, helped test it. Outside, their father, Matt Wolverton, shoveled paths and carved out a snow fort for when conditions eased.
"I love having them home typically," said Sarah Fox. "In good weather I'd rather they be home than have a school day, but six kids need a lot of energy burned so snow days that they can't actually play in the snow tend to be not great."
On Orne Street, 93-year-old Bette Hunt, the town's historian emerita, was unimpressed.
"It's not a pretty snow," Hunt said. "I'm a nosy broad, and this storm is troublesome. I can't see what is going on outside my window."
She saved the New York Times crossword puzzle and a couple of stories for the day and said she had everything she needed at home.
"I don't eat a helluva lot any more — I do love fruit," she said.
Crews work through outages and high winds
Wind redistributed snow unevenly — piling it behind chimneys, dormers and parapets, concentrating stress on flat and low-pitch roofs. The same compaction that plastered snow to the leeward sides of houses for hours also loaded overhead wires, increasing both weight and wind resistance on cables already whipping in gusts. Crews from the Marblehead Light Department confronted that reality throughout the day.
Jonathan Blair, the department's general manager, said high winds limited his crews' ability to make repairs during the height of the storm.
"Crews cannot safely work aloft in a bucket or on a pole in excessive wind," Blair said.
The department restored power to the Blueberry/Peach Highlands neighborhood, reducing total outages to 15 by Monday afternoon. Most remaining outages were concentrated in the Clifton, Broughton and Hillcrest neighborhoods.
"Almost all issues have been associated with falling limbs," Blair said, adding that slick roads and poor visibility complicated driving and diagnosing problems with the overhead distribution system.
"Overall, we are optimistic about restoring all customers this evening, once the winds subside enough for us to safely conduct repairs."
Police Chief Dennis King said every public safety and snow operations employee was working Monday, spanning the Department of Public Works, schools, police, fire, electric light and harbormaster divisions.
"We have not been delayed or denied access to any calls for service," King said.
Crews responded to falling tree limbs throughout the day. King emphasized that the blizzard warning remained in effect until 7 a.m. Tuesday and that the governor had declared a state of emergency.
"People should not be on the streets or walking through town," he said.
"It's unsafe for them and the snow operation crews trying to maintain critical minimum safety levels of the roads."
Coastal conditions intensify impact
Along the coast, conditions were worse than snow alone. The weather service's marine forecast for waters east of Ipswich Bay and Stellwagen Bank carried a storm warning, calling for north winds of about 52 to 63 mph with gusts to about 75 mph and seas of 20 to 25 feet Monday afternoon. Storm surge of 2 to 3 feet coincided with the early-morning high tide between roughly 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., and the weather service cited moderate coastal flooding south of Boston and minor flooding possible from Boston north to the New Hampshire border.
Along Salem Harbor, the storm's force was evident. A sailboat broke free from its mooring on the Salem side and drifted toward Stramski Pier before running aground at low tide. The harbormaster was notified as wind-driven snow and reduced visibility continued to challenge conditions along the waterfront.
Coastal storms often produce flakes with higher water content than inland systems, and when sustained winds shred and compact those flakes, the result is something closer to frozen sand than powder. The buildup on windows and siding across town had a pebbled, stucco-like texture — evidence of small, heavily rimed crystals driven hard into every seam. On the streets, drifts formed sharp, wind-carved ridges: dense enough to accumulate, dry enough to blow, heavy enough to sculpt.
The storm was expected to clear by Tuesday, with partly cloudy skies and highs in the lower 30s. But the snow left behind is not the kind that melts quietly. Wind-hardened drifts can block furnace exhaust vents, obscure hydrants and create ice dams once melting begins. Any partial thaw will refreeze overnight, turning sculpted drifts into structural ice. King reminded residents and contractors that pushing snow back into cleared roadways is prohibited by town bylaw.
The weather service forecast another chance of snow and rain for Wednesday.
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