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It’s a snowstorm for the record books in Williamsburg, Va. Snow fell for more than 20 hours, from late Friday night through early Saturday evening, and 12.5 inches accumulated. The snow was light and powdery, and it drifted and swirled down Duke of Gloucester Street with the storm’s strong winds. The beautiful colonial capital in Southeast Virginia was transformed into a blizzard-like winter wonderland.

Williamsburg averages 5.1 inches of snow a year. With one storm, the city has more than doubled its average annual snowfall. This snowstorm almost equaled the great snowstorm of Jan. 5, 1980, which dropped 13.5 inches of snow in 24 hours on Williamsburg, but fell well short of the blizzard of 1966, which dumped 21.8 inches of snow on the city.

According to the National Weather Service’s Wakefield Office, Virginia’s heaviest snow fell in a wide band through Emporia, Wakefield, Williamsburg and the Eastern Shore. That region experienced snowfall totals in the range of 9 to 12 inches or more.

From my observations, near-blizzard conditions occurred about 7:30 a.m. in Williamsburg when the visibility dropped below a quarter of a mile with strong winds and extremely heavy snow. The snowfall rates were impressive.

Late last week, I was all in for the weekend storm chase to Williamsburg. The computer weather models showed Southeast Virginia in the bull’s eye for heavy snow accumulations while my home in Northern Virginia was left out of the snow fun with a forecast of light accumulations, at best.

My plan was to photograph the storm from daybreak Saturday through sunrise Sunday. My only worry was that the snow would turn to sleet, a very common occurrence with snowstorms in Williamsburg. Sleet never fell with this storm, however. The precipitation stayed snow for the entire duration of the storm.

I know Williamsburg well. My son is in his second year at William and Mary, and I take annual family vacations to the city for its history, tavern food and roller coasters at Busch Gardens. Our last family outing to Williamsburg was just three weeks ago when we visited Christmas Town at Busch Gardens and Shields Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg.

I booked the Williamsburg Lodge for the weekend’s storm chase and arrived Friday evening as the first snowflakes began to fall. The lodge is within walking distance of all of my photography targets, and I knew their restaurants would stay open during the storm. It is a great choice for storm-chase base station.

I awoke at 6 a.m. on Saturday and quickly looked out the window. Snow was falling rather heavily, and it appeared that four or five inches had accumulated overnight. I bundled up, skipped breakfast and went immediately out into the storm with my camera gear.

Instantly, I realized this photo shoot would be a little more challenging than many of my past snow shoots. The snow was blowing horizontally under my umbrella and several times my umbrella blew inside out. By the end of the day, my umbrella was broken.

I decided to ditch the tripod for Saturday’s shoot and went with my handheld camera because of the challenging weather conditions. I shoot with a Sony a7RII, which did a good job with the low light and focus through the heavy snow. Occasionally, the camera would focus on huge snowflakes in the foreground, but not often. On Sunday morning, I used my tripod, however.

I went on five photo shoots Saturday and Sunday on foot through Colonial Williamsburg, and William and Mary. Each of the missions lasted an hour or two, and then I’d rush back to the lodge to warm up, eat and have coffee. It was a wonderful setup. Storm chasing in style!

I took hundreds of photos during the weekend. It was kind of hard to select my favorites because Williamsburg has so many beautiful landmarks and views. I picked an assortment of photos that show different parts of the city and college buried under deep snow.

Williamsburg’s road crews did a great job clearing the side streets, roads and highways. I had no problem traveling home Sunday morning.

A little over an inch of snow fell where I live in Oakton and, ironically, the worst road conditions I encountered during my entire trip was on my street. It was a sheet of ice.

But I made it back okay, and I consider the storm chase a big success. It was great fun, and I have some really cool photos to show of Williamsburg’s historic snowstorm of 2017.

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