10 Historic US Blizzards and Winter Storms

Blizzards and winter storms in general are underrated. Tornadoes and hurricanes, they get all the attention. But massive winter storms, they can be just as dangerous and deadly. If not even more deadly, then you're more popular, more talked about natural disasters. Several blizzards and winter storms throughout the past few centuries have had crippling effects on large portions of the United States. Stopping traffic, taking out electrical grids, shutting down cities in some cases for weeks. And we're going to be discussing some of the worst of these blizzards and winter storms. In fact, we'll be going over 10 significant winter weather events in today's video. Keep in mind, it's not all about snow accumulation. I know people love to talk about 50 inches, 60, 80, 100 inches of snow. And we are going to talk about that. But we're also talking about events that featured frigid temperatures, high winds, whiteout conditions, and other wintry things. Anyway, let's get on to the first event on our list, number 10. So 2011 was a terrible year for weather as it featured several deadly tornado outbreaks, including the April 27th super outbreak. But 2011 was also a pretty active winter for many. In fact, one particular winter storm-turned-blizzard claimed 40 lives. I'm of course talking about the Groundhog Day blizzard that occurred from January 31st through February 2nd. This winter storm had quite the impact on a large portion of the United States, including states as far south as Texas and New Mexico, up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Major cities within these states were shut down for days. For example, it's estimated that over 20 inches fell on the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. The highest accumulation of snow was measured in Anatok, Illinois at 27 inches. On top of the heavy snowfall, there were also wind gusts up to 60 mph. Well, it's really, really windy out here this morning. And that's what's making this so treacherous. The blowing snow, the blowing wind. Take a look at this satellite imagery taken just after the event. The Midwest is kind of looking like the planet of Hoth in this image. By the way, it wasn't just the Midwest that was affected. Portions of New England and Canada were also struck by this blizzard. Connecticut, for example, received 10 inches of snow. Ice accumulation was a major problem for the Northeast, especially in New York and Pennsylvania. Check out this satellite time-lapse of the storm tearing across the United States. Definitely a major storm system. Most of the fatalities were the result of car accidents or heart attacks caused by shoveling snow, although there were a few cases of people who perished due to exposure and hypothermia. In the end, the 2011 Groundhog Day blizzard caused major problems from New Mexico all the way up to Nova Scotia, Canada, and it remains one of the worst winter storms in recent memory. Moving on to number nine. Next up on the list is another, you know, kind of recent Category 5 blizzard, and that is the Great Blizzard of 1996. This blizzard was caused by a nor'easter slamming into the eastern United States from January 6th through January 10th. Good evening, I'm Bill Futel. The snow has stopped falling, but it's going to be a very long time indeed before we can forget the power and the fury of the blizzard of 96. New York and New Jersey are still under states of emergency, and we have a lot of information to bring to you tonight. Now, if you live in New England or the East Coast, you've probably heard the term nor'easter, but many of us, including me, never heard that term growing up because, well, we didn't live in the Northeast. So what is a nor'easter, you might be wondering? Well, a nor'easter is short for northeast. It's not called a nor'easter because they occur frequently in the Northeast. The name actually comes from the wind direction. So during these events, the winds are actually coming from the Northeast. These high winds are caused by an area of low pressure moving off the East Coast. Now, some call nor'easters winter hurricanes because, well, they kind of look like hurricanes, and on rare occasions, they even form an eye. Here's a picture of a nor'easter off the coast of New York in 2018, and you can definitely see the hurricane-like aspects of it. That's because both hurricanes and nor'easters are cyclones, which is a blanket term for numerous types of low pressure systems. Anyway, the big picture is that they are both crazy weather events, and they can be very dangerous and very deadly. The Great Blizzard of 1996, for example, caused a staggering 154 fatalities. The most heavily infected states were Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, and New York. The max snow accumulation was measured at 48 inches in West Virginia. Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston all saw up to 30 inches of snow, which essentially paralyzed these cities. Most of the fatalities occurred in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. A large amount of deaths came from heart attacks shoveling snow. So people don't really realize this, but like, you know, if you're out there in the cold air, and you're like in a hurry, and you're going to town shoveling snow, you can easily overexert yourself and suffer from a heart attack. So just be sure to be safe. Be sure to get like your son to shovel the driveway. You don't need to be doing that. Go back inside. A very similar Nor'easter impacted the same area in 2016. In fact, this is the last Category 5 blizzard as of the making of this video. Now 1978 was a terrible year for winter weather. So it was 1977, and so it was 1979. But 1978 in particular was pretty bad, because it features two entries on today's list. The first 1978 blizzard that we are discussing is the February 5th through 7th Northeastern U.S. Blizzard, aka the Blizzard of 78. This blizzard was caused by a Nor'easter that impacted New England, most heavily impacting the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Peak snow accumulation was measured at 28 inches in several communities in Massachusetts, including a record 27 inches measured in the city of Boston. Wind gusts were as strong as 111 miles per hour, making it one of the more powerful windstorm blizzards on today's list. It was almost like a little blizzard hurricane. There was even an observed eye within the cyclone. See that little eye right there? Pretty rare for a Nor'easter. So do you remember when Hurricane Harvey like sat on Houston and just poured rain on the city for days causing massive flooding? That kind of happened with this Nor'easter. It was a very slow moving storm. And in some areas, snow fell for over 30 hours. Typically, Nor'easters only drop snow for 6 to 10 hours. There were even some moments where there were 5 inches of snow falling per hour. The winter storm was so intense at times that it featured the rare winter phenomena of thundersnow, aka lightning during a snowstorm. See this situation? You do not want to be in this situation. Sometimes, if you're in this situation, by the way, snow can pile up so quickly that it blocks your tail exhaust pipe, leading to poisonous gas inside your car. In fact, 14 people unfortunately died on Interstate 95 from snow blocking their tailpipes during the blizzard of 78. Parts of Massachusetts were at a complete standstill for over a week. Cars were even banned so many had to ski around just to get to places or use snowmobiles. In the end, most of the fatalities were from homes caving in, fallen electrical wires, or simply because a person got stuck and disoriented out in the blizzard and died of exposure. Moving on to number 7. 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The windy city of Chicago is white as well as windy, battered by a furious winter storm which dumped two feet of snow across the Midwest. 68 deaths were traced to the blizzard. 10-foot drifts were a common sight after the 29-hour snowfall which brought this giant city to a standstill. To this day, it is the worst blizzard to have ever impacted the city with peak snow accumulation of over 20 inches. Now the snow total might seem low compared to other entries throughout the video, but you got to remember this was a full-blown blizzard with whiteout conditions and sustained wind speeds of over 50 miles per hour. The crazy high winds caused massive snow drifts upwards of 20 feet high. It also started in the middle of the day when people were at work or at school, so people got stuck wherever they were. In fact, there were over 50,000 abandoned vehicles throughout the streets of Chicago. Some people were stuck in their cars for several days, and they had to seek shelter in nearby stores. Overall, there were 60 fatalities, and it took three weeks to plow the streets. Truly a wild event for that city, and it's definitely established itself within Chicago lore with other events such as the Chicago Fire of 1871. So number six is the other blizzard from that awful year of 1978, and that is the Great Blizzard of 1978, aka the Cleveland Super Bomb. This storm actually occurred before the other blizzard of that year. It occurred from January 24th to January 29th over the Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes. The states that were most heavily impacted by the blizzard were Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and especially Ohio and Michigan, which both saw snow accumulations in the 40-inch-plus range. Over 100,000 cars were abandoned throughout Michigan. Overall, 90 people would perish during the Great Blizzard of 1978, with 50 deaths occurring in Ohio alone. The frigid temperatures proved to be the deadliest aspect of the winter storm, as 52 deaths were caused by negative 60-degree wind chills. The remaining fatalities were caused by car accidents, and again, heart attacks from shoveling snow. Now, this particular blizzard might not seem as bad as some of the others on today's list, but by the numbers, it's actually one of the most powerful weather events to ever impact the United States, with barometric pressure readings as low as 956 millibars. In fact, this blizzard produced the second-lowest atmospheric pressure ever recorded over the continuous United States for a non-tropical storm. And for that reason, it makes today's list. But now we move on to number five. Next up with number five is the Great Lakes Storm of 1913. To this day, this event is considered to be the worst natural disaster to ever impact the Great Lakes region, with an estimated death toll of over 250. The initial phases of the storm formed on November 6th and wouldn't last until November 10th. Essentially, this was like a mega winter hurricane blizzard on top of the Great Lakes. Just FYI, natural disasters and being on a boat on water, it's not a good scenario. You don't want to be in that scenario. During this event, a ton of boats were out on the lake because they were doing trading and shipping and all that stuff that people do. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this winter storm hit, and there were whiteout conditions, snow squalls, super high winds creating massive 35-foot waves. It was a recipe for disaster, and a disaster it was. This massive winter storm caused hundreds of shipwrecks. In fact, every single Great Lake reported to have at least one major shipwreck. There's an entire list of shipwrecks from this event on Wikipedia. The ships that saw the highest death toll were the Isaac M. Scott, Charles S. Price, John A. McGean, and the SS Argus. The sinking of all these ships claimed 28 lives each. Some of these ships weren't even discovered until recently, and some haven't even been discovered to this day. Of course, it wasn't just the lake that saw terrible conditions. There was a lot of damage on land as well. The city of Cleveland, for example, received over 20 inches of snow, taking out all the power and paralyzing the city for over a week. The Great Lake storm of 1913 is definitely one of the worst winter storms in recorded history. Number four is the Great Blizzard of 1966 that occurred on January 27th through January 31st. This was indeed another nor'easter, and it heavily impacted a stretch of states from the central southeast all the way up through Canada, but it mainly impacted the states of Pennsylvania and New York. New York specifically saw some crazy snow accumulation of over 103 inches. That's an insane number that was caused by both the mixture of lake effect snow and the nor'easter itself. So you have like a two, a double snow system. Yeah, a lot of snow. Now technically, this was only a category four blizzard, not a category five, but it's still one of the deadliest in U.S. history, as it resulted in 201 fatalities. The freezing temperatures were likely the main factor in the high fatality rate for this winter storm. In fact, 40 of the deaths were fire related when people tried sketchy ways to stay warm within their homes. Even the southern states like Alabama saw record lows in the negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit range. Very cold. Moving on to number three. Number three is the tragic Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 that occurred in the latter half of November in 1950. This storm was widespread, impacting literally almost half of the United States. It impacted 22 states, and this was the very first storm to ever be called the storm of the century. Now this wasn't just a blizzard. This was a whole system that impacted different states in different ways. The system initially formed off the coast of North Carolina and then traveled up through the Appalachians into the Ohio River Valley and then slowly dissipated over New England into Canada. On the eastern side of the Appalachians, there was heavy rain and extreme wind. In fact, there were some wind gusts that were measured over 160 miles per hour, which is, that's insane. The blizzard portion of the storm mostly occurred on the western side of the Appalachians in places like Ohio and West Virginia. Peak snow accumulation was measured in Pickens, West Virginia at 57 inches. Similar to the last entry on this list, one of the more significant aspects of this storm were the record low temperatures that brought to the southeast. Places like Jacksonville, Florida dropped to 20 degrees Fahrenheit and temperatures in Birmingham dropped all the way down to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Some have called the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 the worst to have ever hit the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. It might not be the worst, that's debatable, but it's definitely up there. In the end, there were 383 fatalities, making this winter storm one of the deadliest in recorded history. There were also major flooding problems that caused even more fatalities after all the snow melted. Number two on today's list is the Great Blizzard of 1888 that occurred from March 11th to March 15th. This blizzard featured peak snow accumulation of 58 inches. The event resulted in a staggering 400 fatalities. Similar to previous entries on the list, this blizzard mainly impacted the northeast including the states of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. People were stuck in their homes for weeks and there were sustained winds of 45 miles per hour creating snow drifts so high that they would cover entire homes. There were even snow drifts that were over 50 feet tall, like a typical two-story home is 25 feet. So can you imagine 50 feet? That's wild. It actually started off as a big rainstorm with temperatures around 30 to 40 degrees. However, as the system moved in, temperatures dropped to eight degrees and the rain quickly turned into snow and then snow fell for like the next two days. Pretty much everything, every community in the northeast had to stop for days on end. There were no rail lines, the telegraph lines were down, communication was impossible. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two days, something that wouldn't occur until Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It was quite the event. A large portion of the death toll came, again, from ships and boats off the coast that were caught off guard by the high waves and blizzard conditions, leading to them capsizing and eventually sinking. The Great Blizzard of 1888 remains, to this day, the deadliest winter storm in U.S. history. And finally, number one is the 1993 Storm of the Century. This was a massive winter storm system that heavily impacted essentially half of the United States, from Florida and the southeast, through the Appalachian Mountains, up the East Coast into New England and portions of Canada. Lots of blowing and drifting still with that gusty wind. We're looking at moderate blowing snow, and the winds are really fierce out here. The wind chills are down. I am really cold out here. And you can see that this is actually one of the smaller drifts behind me, seven and eight foot drifts. To get an idea of the scale of this storm, take a look at this satellite imagery. This storm system is literally stretching from south of Mexico all the way up through Canada. Incredible. Peak snow accumulation occurred on Mount Leconte, Tennessee, with measurements up to 56 inches. This also had a low barometric pressure reading of 960 millibars, making it one of the more powerful systems on today's list. Overall, there were 318 fatalities, making it one of the deadliest, not only blizzard in the U.S., but weather events in general in recent memory. People were stranded in the Appalachians. They needed to be rescued via helicopter. Roofs had caved in from the thick and heavy snow. On top of all the snow, there was frigid temperatures. Birmingham, Alabama got 13 inches of snow. Birmingham, Alabama, that's like the south, got 13 inches of snow, which would be crazy. I mean, that's like a bad snowstorm in Minneapolis. That's a crazy amount for Birmingham. So sure you know just how bad this storm is. While Kevin was outside watching the anemometer in the office here, we had a wind gust of 52, 52 miles per hour. There was even a mini tornado outbreak embedded within a derecho with at least 11 confirmed tornadoes, all of them touching down in the state of Florida. The strongest was an F2 that actually claimed three lives. Now, while F2 tornadoes are considered significant, it is rare for them to have that large of a death toll. There was also massive flooding and storm surge in Florida. Some areas on the coast were under 12 feet of water. 47 people in Florida perished due to flooding. So really you have a massive blizzard, a derecho, a tornado outbreak, a storm surge similar to that of a hurricane. No wonder many have called it the perfect storm or the storm of the century. Now, this may not have as high of a death toll as, you know, the historic blizzard of 1888, but it's a much more recent event and people were way more prepared. The fact that there was still a high death toll with this event just goes to show how dangerous it was. This is such a major winter event that it's impossible to properly cover it all in this video. It really deserves a video of its own, and I'm pretty sure there's already several YouTube videos about this event, and they're pretty good, so be sure to check those out. Now, here's something that's rather intriguing. Some say that this massive weather storm system, storm of the century, blizzard, tornado outbreak, could have been caused by a volcanic eruption. Yeah, specifically the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. This is due to volcanic ash and debris triggering a mini volcanic winter. Now, of course, a volcano is definitely not the only factor. There are many factors here at play, but some meteorologists do claim it could have played a pretty big role. Definitely one of the most significant weather events in the past 100 years, one that many will remember for quite some time. Have you ever seen that Stephen King miniseries called Storm of the Century? Whenever I hear about the 1993 storm of the century, I always think about that. It's really creepy, but it's kind of good. So there you have it. 10 historic infamous US blizzards. Which events did I miss? Which events would you have added? Do you remember any of these historic snowstorms? Let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching.