A stop sign buried in a snow drift.

NOVA is opening late on Friday morning at 10 a.m. as the area comes back to life after record snow fall, according to a text message alert. This ends the seven straight days NOVA has been closed since its noon closing last Friday.

According to NOVA’s website, “all classes that begin at or after the designated time will be held as usual. Any class with at least 45 minutes of class time remaining after the college opens will also be held.”

NOVA makes the decision to open or close school based on the condition of primary roads, the roads near campuses, and condition of the parking lots. The school is likely to be open “regardless of the condition of secondary roads around the region.”

The typical four by four trucks VDOT uses to clear out four to six inches of snow are inadequate for the nearly 30 inches many neighborhood streets still have, according to a VDOT press release. Larger equipment from the rest of the state has been moved to Northern Virginia to assist in clearing the streets.

The DC region broke the all time historical record for snow, with 54.9 inches of snow fall this Winter at Ronald Reagan National Airport. The snow from the December 19th storm, and the February 5th storm contributed to the record, with a 9.8 inch dump in the past two days pushing up the record. The previous record snow was 54.4 inches from the Winter of 1898-99.

Besides the impressive snow totals, this storm brings in some interesting numbers from the road crews. Nearly 500,000 tons of snow was removed from the roads, and that was before the current storm struck. Hunreds of additional trucks are being moved in from around the state, as the 2000 current vehicles struggle to clear the roads in Northern Virginia.

The region is not even out of the snow risk. The National Weather Service is calling for more snow on Monday.

By: Joshua Davis

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