Late January into February ispeak time for major Northeast winter storms.
But on Jan. 22, 1922, 104 years ago this evening, one such major East Coast snowstorm became one of the deadliest.
This late-January storm left snow in its wake from South Carolina to Massachusetts, but saved its greatest impact for the Nation's Capital.
From the afternoon of Jan. 27 through Jan. 28, 28 inches of snow fell in Washington, D.C., still the city's all-time snowstorm record dating to 1885 and double the modern-day average yearly snowfall in the city (13.7 inches). Some parts of the metro picked up an incredible 38 inches from this storm.
Roads and sidewalks were clogged with heavy snowup to waist-deep, according to rarehistoricalphotos.com.Drifts up to 16 feetwere reported on stretches of railroad between Washington and Philadelphia.
But that evening, the weight of this snow atop Washington, D.C.'s Knickerbocker Theater caused the roof to split, collapse and take down a balcony during the showing of a silent movie.
Ninety-eight people were killed and another 133 were injured when the roof split.
This event became known as the Knickerbocker Storm, based on this tragic event.
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.
