What's Your Favorite Snowstorm

[Tom12309]

Don't remember the day but in 1969 Central Vt. got it pretty good.  School closed for three days.  17 foot drifts in the field behind the house (we measured), drifts in the front of the house to the eaves.  It took a loader all morning to clear about a quarter mile of road from the neighbor's to the crest of the hill east of the house.  My most vivid memory of the storm was a grey squirrel hanging on for dear life in the bird feeder, the wind was blowing gale force.  What the squirrel was doing out and about I have no idea.  

 

Ah, the memories.  We used to make tunnel systems in the drifts, a tradition was an igloo every year, one year we made an honest to god toboggan run with iced, banked corners down the field back of the house... no way you'd have enough snow for that these days.  

[joey2002]

I'm surprised there aren't more votes for October 2011.  Most impressive storm I've ever seen – the tree damage was just incomprehensible. 

 

Is anyone here old enough to remember the 1973 ice storm? 

 

From what I've heard, that's the only other CT winter storm in recent history with damage comparable to Oct 2011. 

[SeanInWayland]

Mine was 11/25/71 (Thanksgiving Day) living in Albany, NY. I was 9 and we had just moved to Albany from Houston, TX, where needless to say I had not seen any snow that I can recall (I'm sure a few flakes come down now and then in Houston--I just didn't see any when I was a kid).

 

My parents and the rest of my family went down to southern NJ to visit my grandmother for Thanksgiving. I was left behind to stay with my best friend's family for reasons I cannot recall. Forecast was 4-6" of snow Wed night into Thursday, I was really excited to finally see a snowstorm. Woke up next morning with 12" already on the ground and it just kept snowing. Ended up with almost 23" when all was said and done. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

 

My friends house was in the woods, and they had a (flat, thank God) 200' driveway. With a bunch of people coming over for Thanksgiving, it fell to my friend and I to shovel. We spent the whole day doing it and barely managed to scrape out a path to the road so people could walk from the road to the house.

 

Afterwards, we stayed inside and watched the OK-NE football game, which at the time was billed as the game of the century. Spent the rest of the weekend semi-snowbound but I didn't care, what a great memory.

[dendrite]

Fave has to be Oct 11.

Next in line is probably Mar 01, Jan 11, Mar 93, Dec 97, Mar 05

[DavisStraight]

1) February 1978 - anyone who was old enough has this one at the top of their list, not in jackpot zone but close enough to be epic

2) April 1 1997 - another great one in Cent Mass

3) February 1969 - back to back blizzards, until 1978 my most memorable snows

4) January 1996 - was in a great spot for this one, part of an epic year

5) December 1992 - travelled to Worcester that evening, worst traffic disaster Ive ever been in due to snow, Route 20 was littered with jacknifed semis, epic drifts in at my sisters in Charlton.

[shawnmov]

Blizzard of February 78 is the standard for me. First major storm I remember. Was 9 years old. First experience with thunder snow. No school for 2 weeks. And that first day opening the garage door and not being able to see outside due to the snow drifts was epic. To have snow in your driveway above your head was something that I will never forget, or probably experience again.

[wx2fish]

Fave has to be Oct 11.

Next in line is probably Mar 01, Jan 11, Mar 93, Dec 97, Mar 05

 

Agree on Dec 97 ranking up there. Went to school with a 1-3" forecast and watched 20" fall in 6 hours as I stared in awe out the window during our class Christmas party. My bus got stuck for a half hour on the way home. I was only in 5th grade so I didnt fully understand what had just unfolded, but it is an awesome memory. It was definitely some of the heaviest snow Ive ever seen.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Books have not really been written about some of the other storms. A really good book about 1978 is Ten Hours Til Dawn, about the wreck of the Can Do

[weathafella]

Whenever I think of these events, the first one that pops in my mind is 3/19/56.  Forecasted 1-2 inches and ended up 1-2 feet with high winds, drifts to the roof...simply epic.

 

The next on my list would be 12/11-12, 1960.  9-10F, winds exceeding 50 mph, heavy snow.

 

Then 3/3/60  Nuff said.  Sub par winter that ended with a bang.

 

Then the Lindsay storm in 1969 that Kocin and I experienced....he as a younger person by about 10 years on LI.

 

Finally, a tossup:  January 2005 was great but 3/31-4/1/97 was something to behold....so that wins.

[Walpole Joe]

Feb 6, 1978.

 

Can't really add much more to what has been written, but for me, other than the ferocity of the storm and the depth of the snow that all mentioned, a couple of things stand out:

 

1) The cleanness of the air after the storm, as everything was shut down except front-end loaders and snow mobiles, and even the loaders couldn't get in for a while. Then the days after Tuesday were crystal clear and cold 

2) Coming back to school after 8 days off, my 5th grade teacher asked me if i had gone to FLorida because of my tan; got it from sledding every day

3) My neighbor, who gave me and my buddy 10 bucks apiece to shuffle his driveway, despite drifts that seemed 15 feet high, but probably weren't; boy did he screw us! 

 

As most who lived through it have said, I doubt it is ever repeated

[tavwtby]

Easily 78 is first, nothing will ever top that

Jan 1996 was close only because i bought a new 4x4 a week before it happened and spent the whole storm driving around waterbury, at one point, i navigated by the faint glow of the streetlights, thats the hardest ive ever seen it snow

April 82 because it was April vacation from school and was an amazing storm for that time of year

March 93, for the enormoty of it

Oct 2011, for pretty much the same reason as March 93

Couple other good ones

April 97, because i had to travel to Hudson MA for work that morning and got to experience what 39 inches of wet snow looked like

Feb 03, or 04 i cant remember, but the megaband that gave us tssn and hours of heavies

January of 2011 38" snowpack on my roof... Incredible hearing the house creak and moan and the epic snowpiles around waterbury

[Tom12309]

Was it 1986 we had an October storm in Albany?  I was over at the farm and my Dad and I were going to run a half marathon in Hanover.  Over there it was simply slushing sideways.  We both kept saying we were good to go. Neither of us wanted to be the first to admit we thought we were nuts.. until it came time to leave and we both at the same time said what, are we nuts?  So I drove back to the Dorptown that afternoon and all the roads were closed over the Green Mountains until I found my way down to North Adams - which was just a mess, all the trees torn apart.  I was almost out of gas and there was one station with power.  The guy working there was completely out of his mind.  I think my apartment was the only place in town that never lost power.  Some people were out for weeks.  Not really a favorite, I prefer nice powdery ones measured in feet without all the damage, but definitely memorable. 

[tamarack]

The April 13-17, 2007 Nor'Easter. 75" of snow at Sugarloaf, Maine and it just kept on snowing and snowing and snowing and, well you get the idea. This is the largest single storm snowfall total event for me. The town of Stratton, Maine used a highway grader to move all of the heavy wet snow.

 

Don't doubt for a minute that Sugarloaf got all that snow.  However, the Patriot's Day storm was April 15-17 (only time I'll ever see 5" rain and 5" snow from the same event.)  The snowfall on (mostly) 4/13 was a totally separate and much weaker storm, though it dumped 11" at my place and more upcountry.  Even with that storm deducted, the later monster may have indeed exceeded the 56" at Long Falls Dam in the 2/24-28/69 storm, which since then held Maine's record for a single storm at a COOP location.  Is there an official station, COOP or something else, at Sugarloaf by which one might obtain the daily snowfalls during that storm?

[Tropopause_Fold]

I can't believe Bob and I are the only votes for Jan 2005.

Haha...I didn't think I had to label it. That was my vote as well.

[CoastalWx]

Haha...I didn't think I had to label it. That was my vote as well.

 

Such a close 2nd, but April Fools takes the cake for me.

[Tropopause_Fold]

Haha...I didn't think I had to label it. That was my vote as well.

Such a close 2nd, but April Fools takes the cake for me.

I can appreciate that. I missed that storm for the most part in NY and it wasn't as bad down here anyway had I been here.

[CoastalWx]

I can appreciate that. I missed that storm for the most part in NY and it wasn't as bad down here anyway had I been here.

 

I think if I were in KGHG I would have picked 2005, but I was living in Hyde Park at my grandmother's while we were waiting for our house to be built. It was a complete sh*t show there. Probably the most I've ever been in awe....aside from the 1 hr in 12/9/05.

[dendrite]

Feb 03, or 04 i cant remember, but the megaband that gave us tssn and hours of heavies

Feb 06?

[codfishsnowman]

not this one lol...couldn't resist

 

probably early feb of 2001...insane rates and temps right around 30 degrees, 18 inches without any board clearing or six hr measurments. I do remember clearing the driveway several times and the total inches i cleared in the driveway was something like 22 inches but it was less than six hour intervals.

 

 

last time i saw legit thundersnow...and this was back when i lived in Bristol CT.

[CapturedNature]

Was it 1986 we had an October storm in Albany?  I was over at the farm and my Dad and I were going to run a half marathon in Hanover.  Over there it was simply slushing sideways.  We both kept saying we were good to go. Neither of us wanted to be the first to admit we thought we were nuts.. until it came time to leave and we both at the same time said what, are we nuts?  So I drove back to the Dorptown that afternoon and all the roads were closed over the Green Mountains until I found my way down to North Adams - which was just a mess, all the trees torn apart.  I was almost out of gas and there was one station with power.  The guy working there was completely out of his mind.  I think my apartment was the only place in town that never lost power.  Some people were out for weeks.  Not really a favorite, I prefer nice powdery ones measured in feet without all the damage, but definitely memorable. 

You're thinking of 1987.  Is the same year that it snowed late in April for an unusually short snow free period.  The '87-'88 season wasn't bad snow wise but the next 4 years certainly did.  Perhaps that's why Dec '92 is tops for me, despite the fact that I didn't do so well.  I just loved that storm and the seasons that followed.

 

Obviously I never lived through it, but March 1888 has always fascinated me.  The impact of that storm was enormous.  I know that it's impact has been exceeded in different pockets, but as a whole, I think it's a storm that has been rivaled but not exceeded.

[tamarack]

You're thinking of 1987.  Is the same year that it snowed late in April for an unusually short snow free period.  The '87-'88 season wasn't bad snow wise but the next 4 years certainly did.  Perhaps that's why Dec '92 is tops for me, despite the fact that I didn't do so well.  I just loved that storm and the seasons that followed.

 

Obviously I never lived through it, but March 1888 has always fascinated me.  The impact of that storm was enormous.  I know that it's impact has been exceeded in different pockets, but as a whole, I think it's a storm that has been rivaled but not exceeded.

 

I'm not sure of any storm having a greater impact, even in pockets, than the worst places in 1888 - up to 4' snow with temps -30 from climo and winds approaching hurricane force in gusts.  This combination of snow, cold, and wind was amazing, and the latter two lie outside the NESIS scale (for very good reasons.)  And for social/infrastructure impact and loss of life, no other US winter storm seems especially close, though I could be missing some things.

[tavwtby]

Feb 06?

Nah, it was before 2006 and after 2002 because i was living at a particular apartment for that event, and it was on a sunday, but 2006 was the valentines day storm wasn't it? So many memorible storms in this area through the years around the first couple weeks of February, it is hard to remember them all specifically.

[tamarack]

Nah, it was before 2006 and after 2002 because i was living at a particular apartment for that event, and it was on a sunday, but 2006 was the valentines day storm wasn't it? So many memorible storms in this area through the years around the first couple weeks of February, it is hard to remember them all specifically.

 

V Day was in 2007.  I think your memory is from PDII, Feb 16-17, 2003.  NYC got 19.8".

[ORH_wxman]

Nah, it was before 2006 and after 2002 because i was living at a particular apartment for that event, and it was on a sunday, but 2006 was the valentines day storm wasn't it? So many memorible storms in this area through the years around the first couple weeks of February, it is hard to remember them all specifically.

 

Feb '06 was on a sunday. Feb 12, 2006. Sunday morning is when that megaband destroyed CT.

[Johnno]

not this one lol...couldn't resist

probably early feb of 2001...insane rates and temps right around 30 degrees, 18 inches without any board clearing or six hr measurments. I do remember clearing the driveway several times and the total inches i cleared in the driveway was something like 22 inches but it was less than six hour intervals.

last time i saw legit thundersnow...and this was back when i lived in Bristol CT.

I remember doing the exact same with our driveway and just being in awe of how quickly it piled up. I think for our area it's a tie for me between that storm and Oct 11, edge for 11 just because of the timing and damage

[CT Rain]

I remember doing the exact same with our driveway and just being in awe of how quickly it piled up. I think for our area it's a tie for me between that storm and Oct 11, edge for 11 just because of the timing and damage

 

Really Feb 01 is up there that high?

 

I don't recall it down in Guilford. October 2011 is just so special for me. 

[CT Rain]

Feb '06 was on a sunday. Feb 12, 2006. Sunday morning is when that megaband destroyed CT.

 

Never forget that 8 a.m. to noon stretch when a pedestrian snowstorm became the ultimate fluff bomb. 

[ORH_wxman]

Really Feb 01 is up there that high?

 

I don't recall it down in Guilford. October 2011 is just so special for me. 

 

 

Feb '01 produced well in CT River valley in MA and extreme N CT..esp west side of HFD county....check out the PNS from that

 

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/climate/snowrpts/FE060114

[OKpowdah]

March 2001 is up there obviously

 

3/8/2005 was pretty cool ... flash freeze.

 

12/31/2008 ... awesome dendrites ... nice little snow bomb ~10" in 4 hours.

 

October 2011 ...one of the most anomalous events any of us will ever experience in our lives

[Johnno]

Really Feb 01 is up there that high?

I don't recall it down in Guilford. October 2011 is just so special for me.

Yea it was the real deal in this area, it's actually the one time I saw CT DOT "lose" the road due to snow accumulation ( not to tree damage like Oct 11) and it had to be plowed with loaders the trucks could not push it. I just remembering refreshing the radar and watching the bands rotate up over us in awe. The rates in Jan 11 and Oct 11 reminded me of that storm. Jan 05 disappointed here save a couple hours compared to what we were expecting.