In my books, nothing comes close to the Buffalo Blizzard of ’77....
There was only 12 or so inches of new snow dumped during the Blizzard itself but in the two months before the Blizzard, both months totally destroyed all previous monthly snow accumulation records.... 60” in December and 68” in January. When the winds of 70 mph hit at the end of January, it whipped up all the snow on the ground and there were drifts so deep, helicopters flying overhead after the winds and the storm died down 5 days later could barely make out the roofs of houses. And the wind was brutally cold... windchill was in the range of -40 to -60 degrees. Schools were closed for two weeks afterwards... that’s how long it took for the city to dig out.
One of my brothers was dating a young lady in NYC at that time and when the storm hit, he managed to limp into a gas station just off of I-90 on the east side of Buffalo....he was finally able to leave the gas station 5 days later.
“In my books, nothing comes close to the Buffalo Blizzard of ’77...”
The inspiration for the Jimmy Buffet song lyric, “They’re freezing up in Buffalo, stuck in their cars and I’m laying here neath the sun and the stars.”