WAMC looked at some of the biggest snowfalls in Hudson Valley history.
In Sullivan County, WAMC’s Elias Guerra recorded 14 inches on Monday morning.
Winter storm Fern lasted two-days, so WAMC looked back at the Hudson Valley’s historical two-day snowfall extremes:
The biggest two-day snowfall in Sullivan County’s history was 39 inches recorded in Callicoon on Feb. 16 1958.
The New York Times reported the 1958 storm “brought snow to areas from central Maine to Virginia.”
The Millbrook Round Table reported the storm brought 45-mile-per-hour winds and caused “some of the worst drifting many old timers here could remember.”
To the southeast, Westchester and Putnam counties set their two-day snowfall records the same day–Dec. 27 in 1947. That's when Westchester received 32 inches and Putnam got 25 inches.
Headlines from the Bronxville Review-Press called it the “Worst Blizzard since 1888.” The snowfall made highways impossible to drive on and many people spent the night at their places of business.”
But the Hudson Valley's biggest two-day snowfall since the turn of the 20th century came in Greene County. Recorded in 1960, a March 5th storm wallopped Tannersville with 40 inches.
The Rood Hook Advertiser reported a man named Joseph Jones died when he and his wife went off the road during the snowstorm. His wife, Edith, survived with injuries to her arms and legs.
Still, even with all these dangerous and debilitating storms in the modern era, it's hard to top the historic Blizzard of 1888. It remains one of the fiercest winter storms the Northeast has ever seen, and with winds of up to 80 miles per hour, the doozy became known as “The Great White Hurricane.”
Over several days starting Sunday, March 11th, the white hurricane dropped 4 feet of snow on Albany, which had already received a Christmastime storm of 2 feet that season. When the white hurricane swept in, the New York State Legislature adjourned and people had to climb out of second story windows because their front doors were blocked.
According to the National Weather Service, in Wawarsing, just north of Ellenville in Ulster County, NY, snowfall totals reached 30 inches. Several areas around Slide Mountain Wilderness, including West Shokan, recorded snowfall totals up to 22 inches.
