We won't see a major East Coast snowstorm this week.
But on Jan. 6, 1996, 30 years ago today, one of the strongest such snowstorms, known as the "Blizzard of 1996," began its siege in the East.
By the time it was over two days later, an impressive swath of 20-plus inches of snow stretched from the Smoky Mountains to parts of Long Island and southern New England.
In over 141 years of records, this remains the heaviest snowstorm on record in Philadelphia (30.7 inches) and Roanoke, Virginia (24.9 inches), according to weather historian Christopher Burt. Baltimore picked up 22.5 inches of snow, and New York City measured 20.2 inches. Wind gusts over 50 mph whipped drifts up to 8 feet deep in some areas.
Using a metric calledNESISwhich accounts for not only amounts but aerial coverage of heavy snow, the Blizzard of 1996 wasonly the second Category 5 East Coast winter stormof record.
As you might imagine, this storm effectively brought daily life to a stop, especially along the Interstate 95 corridor from Washington to the New York City tri-state area.
Most airports from Virginia northward were closed for a time, and travel was hampered until five days after the storm, according to the National Weather Servicepost-storm assessment. Many businesses and government offices were shut down for days.
The stress of heavy snow, strong winds and some freezing rain downed power lines, trees and tree branches, resulting in widespread outages. Some flat roofs caved in after additional snow fell in the days following the storm.
Over $500 million in insured losses and 60 deaths were attributed to the blizzard, according to theNWS. The majority of those deaths were victims of a heart attack while shoveling snow.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him onBluesky,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook.
