The low pressure area began forming in the Southern states a few days prior to the Blizzard striking, eventually merging with a northern stream system. A trough on the East Coast brought the system up the coast, and cold high pressure to the north eventually slowed the system to a crawl. As the system completed bombing, or rapid decrease in central pressure (a common measure of the strength of a storm), mesoscale banding features (areas of significant snowfall associated with smaller scale physical phenomena) impinged on the entire I-95 Corridor.