Blizzard: Three Perspectives

There are three places that I know well that have documented significant snowfall: The Chicagoland area where I spent most of my childhood, Corinth in upstate New York where I spent many summer vacations and Lytham St Annes, a place I have called home for over twenty years.

1) Chicago, Illinois, USA
The great Chicago Blizzard of ’67 was a record breaking extraordinary event. Sadly, I missed it as at that time I was living 183 miles south of the city. However I’ve heard many stories and I’ve seen pictures.

House in Chicago western suburb: Image credit - Wirtz collection

On 24th of January, the temperature around Lake Michigan and the surrounding area had reached an unseasonably warm 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). The temperature then plummeted. Two days later, 53 mile per hour winds and snow blew in with a vengeance raising havoc for 29 hours. It became the worst snowstorm ever recorded in the city dumping a whopping 23 inches (58 cm) of the white stuff and creating drifts of four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters).

Here are some accounts:

          My dad had a work project in South Bend [Indiana,] so we lived there for the
          winter in 1967. I remember walking the sidewalk with him and it was
          truly a tunnel of snow, reaching over our head, and my mom was angry when
          she found out because it was so dangerous, but my dad thought it was cool
          and fun – he was only 26 and I a mere five year old.  Debra Fulscher

          My mom says she wouldn’t let me go play by myself [in the snow].
          I guess she thought I’d get lost or buried in it.  Leslie Barr

          I remember my dad was working at the Outer Drive East and was stuck in
          the city for a couple of days. My mom pulled my brother and I on the toboggan
          sled to Riverside foods for groceries and we carried two bags of groceries on
          our laps and she pulled us back home.  Nadine Ceragioli-Espisito

Fast forward a few years to the Chicago Blizzard of 14th January 1979 (fourth largest snowfall in the history of the city) that dumped 20 inches of snow. The Chicago Tribune’s headline on that day read

          BLIZZARD…Big snow clogs roads, shuts O’Hare

What I remember about this was being so excited to have two days off school. I shuffled across the picturesque suburban town of Riverside on cross country skis to visit friends and play in the snow.

2) Corinth, New York, USA
Every summer throughout my childhood I would be piled into the family station wagon and driven 12 hours to visit my dad’s family in upstate New York. My relatives would often tell tales of Corinth’s freezing and very snowy winters that are much snowier than Chicago. Evidence of significant snowfalls is the c 1900 photo of the Ezra Sayre Drug Store and the 1888 snowstorm as documented in a newspaper retrospectively. 46 inches (116.84 cm) of snow was recorded during the 1888 event, twice the amount as Chicago’s record holding 1967 storm.

Ezra Sayre Drugstore, Corinth, New York: Image credit - Corinth Museum

Saratogian Newspaper Clipping: Image credit - Corinth Museum

3) Lytham St Annes, UK
Lytham St Annes rarely gets snow, therefore any amount of it is quite a thing and something to be reckoned with. I discovered in my research there have been heavy snowfalls documented in the last two hundred years, however nothing comparable to Chicago or upstate New York. One example is the storm from 1907. Here’s an excerpt from an article that appeared in the local newspaper:

          The keen, south-easterly wind blew the light flakes into deep drifts,
          and passengers along the streets sank to their knees in some places…
          In the surrounding country the snow drifted to greater depths and many
          of the roads on the Moss were impassable…[also impassable] were
          Squire’s Gate lane, Division land, and Lytham Road.

Now let’s look at another much more recent event. On the 23rd January 2021 the Lytham St Annes News headline read:

            48 hours of snow chaos to hit Lytham St Annes 

       as Arctic  blizzard unleashes its load on the resort

The article below the headline predicted that over the course of 24 hours -10°C (14°F) and up to 10cm (3.9 inches) would be expected. I couldn’t find information stating how much snow actually did fall, however a picture paints a thousand words. This photograph was taken in the Arctic Blizzard’s aftermath.

Snow in the garden: Image credit - Boz Phillips

Not sure what else to say on the blizzard subject except keep dreaming of the fluffy white stuff and a rather Seussian-like ditty…

A blizzard is chaos no matter how small,
three inches, four inches, twenty or more
inches to feet into snow drifts and all,
a blizzard is chaos no matter how small.

Have a happy festive season and joyous New Year!

Thank you for reading. Kate J

Sources:
Amounderness.co.uk, 2021. 1907 Snow Storm at Lytham & St Annes. https://amounderness.co.uk/1907_snow_lytham_&_st.annes.html Accessed 12 December, 2023.

National Weather Service, 2023. January 26-27, 1967: Chicago’s Largest Snowfall on Record. https://www.weather.gov/lot/67blizzard Accessed 12 December.

Private Eye, 2021. 48 hours of snow chaos to hit Lytham St Annes as Arctic blizzard releases its load on the resort. https://www.lythamstannes.news/news/48-hours-of-snow-chaos-to-hit-lytham-st-annes-as-arctic-blizzard-unleashes-its-load-on-the-resort/ Accessed 6 December 2023.