Was it officially a blizzard? Jury's still out

Was it the Blizzard of 2010 - or just a bad winter storm?

Meteorologists say that question is still open to debate and that they'll spend the day reviewing the data to see if Wednesday's storm meets all the criteria.

"It had the elements to be a blizzard," Tim Morrin, observation program leader for the National Weather Service in Upton said Thursday.

He added: "But we don't have numbers screaming at us that it's a blizzard, though we did verify blizzard conditions at times."

To be classified a blizzard, a winter storm must have snow, whiteout conditions that limit visibility to less than a quarter-mile and wind gusts of at least 35 mph. Those conditions must be sustained for at least three hours.

The question right now, Morrin said, is whether the conditions lasted three hours.

A verification team will review observations from around Long Island.

"We should probably know later today [Thursday]," Morrin said. "We know we had the elements. We just don't know if we sustained them for the required amount of time."

A winter storm must have an average snowfall of 6 inches, Morrin said. "It was a slam-dunk winter storm. We easily met the criteria for that."

Woodmere received the highest snowfall total in Nassau and Suffolk with 16.4 inches, while Floral Park got 16.1. Holbrook and Mount Sinai got 15.4 inches. Rocky Point got 15.2 inches, while North Babylon and Port Jefferson each got 15.

"It was absolutely a remarkable winter storm," Morrin said. "It really was."