What does our weather warning say today? It says: "Life-threatening travel conditions with mega-squall."
"Blinding snow and howling winds are all features of a blizzard, but there are specific conditions that must be met or anticipated before it is deemed a blizzard or given a blizzard warning. The criteria are that winds must be sustained at 40 km/h or more for at least four hours combining with falling or blowing snow to cause visibilities to be reduced to 400 m or less, and this is dubbed the 4-4-4 rule."
"Towering waves will develop during the windy blizzard conditions and there is the chance that Lake Ontario could see waves that are 6 metres (20 feet) tall in the centre of the lake, and waves as tall as 3 metres on the southern shores of Lake Huron and Lake Erie."
We don't have to travel far back in time to find out about the largest blizzards ever experienced. The greatest number of lives lost was in the 1972 Iran Blizzard. It began in February 1972 and lasted a week. It dumped 3 to 5 metres of snow. Four thousand people lost their lives.
We would travel back to 1888 when The Great Blizzard dropped 100 - 130 cm (40-50 in) of snow, had sustained winds of more than 72 km/h and produced snowdrifts in excess of 15 metres.
This time also had the Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 in which the temperature allegedly dropped 100 degrees F in 24 hours. Most of the 235 casualties were children attempting to walk back home. Some teachers kept the children in the one room schoolhouses for a couple of days, ringing bells to alert the community that they were all safe inside. An entire corner of a Nebraska school blew off due to the winds and school teacher Minnie Freeman tied her students together with twine and walked them through the storm to a nearby farmhouse where they took cover.
The top storms of all times are HERE. So many of them!
