Physics Buzz: How Much Snow did Washington DC REALLY Get?

Washington DC looks like a 10 x 10 mile square with a bite taken out of it. All together the city is 68.3 square miles. It’s not too hard to figure out the total volume of snow dumped on the city so far.

55.6″ depth of snow x 68.3 square miles roughly equals 8,820,000,000 cubic feet of snow, or 249,000,000 cubic meters. If you were to build a giant cube of snow that big it would be 2,066 feet, or 629 meters on each side. That’s almost two fifths of a mile or two thirds of a kilometer per side. That’s the volume of about 238 Empire State Buildings. That’s a lot of snow.