Snowstorms

The Blizzard of 1996

January 6 to 9, 1996 · Category 5, Extreme in the Southeast

This storm was a Cat 5 in three regions; the Southeast, the Ohio Valley, and the Northeast. It is one of the worst storms ever witnessed in the urban corridor and rivals the Superstorm of 93 for its crippling snowfall. The slow moving nature of this storm allowed snow to pile up throughout the urban corridor. Over 20 inches of snow fell in a swath from central Virginia to southwestern Massachusetts. This included major cities like New York City, Washington DC, Baltimore, and Providence. A large area of over 30 inches fell within this swath which included Philadelphia where 30.7 inches fell. The largest report came from Big Meadows, VA where 47 inches buried the town. The huge amount of snow and the enormous area affected made clean up efforts very slow leaving the urban corridor paralyzed for a week. The storm is estimated to have caused 3 billion dollars in damage and a 154 fatalities. (Kocin and Uccellini)

What the offices filed during it

Winter weather episodes east of the Rockies from the day before the storm began to the day after it ended, colored by kind.

  • Tornadoes
  • Tropical storms and surge
  • Floods
  • Wind
  • Hail
  • Winter weather
  • Heat and drought
  • Cold
  • Fire, smoke and dust
  • Marine and coastal
  • Other

Open the live map with snow on the ground

The storm by region

Each region’s thresholds are its own, so the same depth of snow counts for more in the South than in the Northeast.

RegionIndexCategoryArea with snow (sq mi)People under snowAbove the top threshold (sq mi)People above it
Southeast26.37Category 5, Extreme169,17431,016,37034,9036,438,050
Northeast21.71Category 5, Extreme162,31258,450,2681,172493,778
Ohio Valley17.93Category 4, Crippling308,66349,098,04022,3811,584,730
South0.02Below category 1168,16515,264,30900
Upper Midwest0.00Below category 134,0485,305,92200

The Regional Snowfall Index is NOAA’s ranking of snowstorms east of the Rockies by how much snow fell, over how wide an area and on how many people, region by region: the area and the population above four snowfall thresholds set for each region, weighted against that region’s own history. A storm is scored in each region it reached, on a scale from 1, notable, to 5, extreme.

The toll the offices filed

Events
1,031
Deaths
25
Injuries
169
Damage
$97 million
Episodes
189

Every winter weather episode the Weather Service filed east of the Rockies in these dates. A few may belong to another system on the same days. Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

Episode by episode

More

The snowstorm of December 18 to 22, 1995The snowstorm of January 15 to 20, 1996Snow nowEvery winter storm filed

Sources

NOAA NCEI Regional Snowfall Index, and the Storm Events Database for the episodes.