We won’t see a major East Coast snowstorm this week.
But on Jan. 6, 1996, 30 years ago today, one of the strongest such snowstorms, known as the “Blizzard of 1996,” began its siege in the East.
By the time it was over two days later, an impressive swath of 20-plus inches of snow stretched from the Smoky Mountains to parts of Long Island and southern New England.
In over 141 years of records, this remains the heaviest snowstorm on record in Philadelphia (30.7 inches) and Roanoke, Virginia (24.9 inches), according to weather historian Christopher Burt. Baltimore picked up 22.5 inches of snow, and New York City measured 20.2 inches. Wind gusts over 50 mph whipped drifts up to 8 feet deep in some areas…