![]() ![]() More than 400 people died from the storm on land, with half of the deaths from New York City alone. ![]() From the Chesapeake Bay north east through New England, more than 200 ships were either grounded or wrecked, claiming more than 100 lives at sea. After the storm, New York began placing its telegraph and telephone cables underground to prevent future storm damage. Communication was also hampered the telegraph infrastructure was impacted, isolating Montreal and most large northeastern cities from Washington, DC to Boston for days. The transportation gridlock as a result of the storm was partially responsible for the creation of the first underground subway system in the US, which opened nine years later in Boston. Huge snow drifts crippled the normally busy New York – New Haven rail line for 8 days. The Blizzard of 1888 paralyzed the region for days. Despite the mild weather ahead of the storm, temperatures nosedived in the storm’s wake New York City’s Central Park Observatory reported a minimum temperature of 6 degrees and a daytime average of 9 degrees on March 13, making it the coldest readings ever for the month at that time. The extensive drifting was created by severe winds 80mph gusts were reported in New England while New York City officially recorded 40mph winds. Drifts were reported to average 30-40 feet, over the tops of homes from New York City to New England there were also reports that some 3-story homes in New England were covered by snow drifts. The heavy snow was whipped by fierce winds, creating unimaginably huge snow drifts. Northern New England didn’t escape the wrath of this coastal storm either places like northern Vermont saw around 20″ of snow. The National Weather Service estimates that this nor’easter dropped as much as 50″ of snow in parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, while parts of New Jersey and New York had up to 40″. On the night of March 12, the rapidly intensifying storm brought cold air into the Mid Atlantic, quickly changing the mild rain to a cold, heavy snow. In places like New York City, the unseasonably mild air was joined by soaking rains. Unseasonably mild temperatures surged up the east coast, leading many to think Spring was about to arrive. The most dramatic March weather occurred in March, 1888. Image: “Northeast Snowstorms” / Paul Kocin & Louis Uccelini ![]() Uccellini now serves as the Director of the National Weather Service. The book was authored by winter weather experts Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini. Very heavy snow fell during the Blizzard of 1888, as this map from the book “Northeast Snowstorms” shows. But even outside of those two historic storms, there have been many impacts in March from Old Man Winter. But many storms have impacted the region over the years. In recent times, the March “Superstorm” of 1993 was the most noteworthy, dropping heavy snow across a large part of the Eastern United States. And perhaps the most famous March storm is the Blizzard of 1888, which brought very heavy snow to the northeast after a stretch of very mild weather. According to the National Weather Service, two of the top three most impactful snowstorms to ever strike the United States since the 1950s were March storms. While the days are getting longer and the calendar inches closer to spring and summer, the month of March has had a history of creating several notable snowstorms. The afternoon run of the same model backed-off such a storm, but having a blizzard in March isn’t that far out of the question. The overnight model run of the American GFS computer forecast model gave snow lovers some hope, depicting a massive area of low pressure on the east coast, whipping up high winds and blanketing the east coast with snow from the Carolinas into New England. Image: Īfter what many people in the I-95 corridor, especially south of New York City, are describing as a snowless winter, people are wondering what the rest of March will bring: will we see a March Blizzard of 2023? After all, March has featured some of the largest blizzards of the year. ![]() The overnight model run of the American GFS computer forecast model depicts a significant east coast snowstorm in the middle of March. ![]()
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