Snow began falling on Washington, D.C. and Baltimore during the early afternoon of January 6, and continued at a consistent rate until mid-afternoon the next day. At that time, the metro area received , and after a few hours of sleet and then a complete stop for several hours, it seemed the worst was over. But overnight, as the storm slowly crawled northward, extremely heavy bands of snow came in from the east. These bands created whiteout conditions as winds gusted past , along with thunder and lightning.