Baltimore’s biggest snow storms
Text by Scott Dance
With two feet or more of snow predicted, this weekend’s blizzard will likely rank Baltimore’s biggest winter storms. The so-called “Knickerbocker” storm of 1922 dropped 26.5 inches of snow in Baltimore and killed 98 people when it collapsed the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C. It was expected to surpass the 21.3 inches that fell during the “Great Arctic Outbreak” of 1899. It will be hard to ever top the back-to-back storms of “Snowmageddon” in February 2010 were, with a combined 44.5 inches of snowfall over five days.
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- February 13, 1899 — A music store at 636 Columbia Ave., corner of Emory St. is seen after the blizzard. (Baltimore Sun)
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- Jan. 27, 1922 — Horse carts are used to remove snow from Court House Plaza in Baltimore during the Knickerbocker Storm. on January 27, 1922. The storm took its name from the resulting collapse of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C. which killed 98 people and injured 133. (Baltimore Sun)
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- Jan. 27, 1922 — Cars are stuck in snowdrifts following the storm in 1922. (Baltimore Sun)
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- Jan. 27, 1922 — Men make a shelter out of a pile of snow following the 1922 storm. (Baltimore Sun)
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- Jan. 27, 1922 — A car is stuck in a snowdrift following the storm in 1922. (Baltimore Sun)
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- Jan. 27, 1922 — Plowed snow creates walls along a road following the storm in 1922. (Baltimore Sun)
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- St Paul Street looking North from Read Street is snow covered following a storm in March 1942. (Baltimore Sun)
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- March went out like a Lion in 1942 when a Palm Sunday Blizzard dumped 22 inches of snow in the city This photo was taken at Northway and Greenway in Guilford Neighborhood. (Baltimore Sun)
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- Feb. 20, 1979 — This boat owner took to the shovel to get to his boat on Spa creek in Annapolis. He had to shovel about 200 feet through snow almost 2 feet deep to get there. There is a lifeline between the boat and shore just in case. (Baltimore Sun)
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- February 19, 1979 — A pedestrian on Mount Vernon Place makes his way past snow-covered parked cars about 8:45AM yesterday after the blizzard. (Ralph L. Robinson/Baltimore Sun)
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- An Icebreaker traces a circle in the C.&D. Canal just south of Chesapeake City as a tug and barge come down the cleared path. (George H. Cook/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 13, 1983 — Salvador Lumaro, 12, works on North Ellwood Street. He wasn’t sure how much he’d get paid, but enjoyed the work. (Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 13, 1983 — People digging their car out of snow, on the 2900 Block of Charles. (William Hotz/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 13, 1983 — Howard Hursey shovelling snow in front of his house at 1201 Wilcox Street with help of his daughter, Tammy, 10 (Weyman Swagger/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 13, 1983 — For this group of children in Middletown in Frederick county, a pile of snow and an inflated sliding tube make a glorious day. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 9, 1996 — Carter Erwin, 10, left, and his 13-year-old brother Benson have dug at least eight tunnels, since Sunday, in the three feet of snow around their home at W. 39th street and Canterbury Road. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 12, 1996 — A Continental Airline employee sweeps snow off the wing of a MD-80 jet leaving BWI Airport for Houston, Texas this afternoon. The smoke is steam from a deicing spray that is applied to planes before takeoff. (Perry Thorsvik/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 8, 1996 — Icicles dangle from the left wing of a USAir passenger jet from melting snow that refreezes at the gate of Baltimore Washington International Airport. BWI Airport remained closed for another day as crews struggled to keep blowing snow from accumulating on the runways. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 16, 1996 — Ashley Johnson, 6, lies down momentarily in the snow and Ambrose Vandenbosche, 10, reads as they wait for the bus to take them to Powhatan Elementary School. They’re at Park and Poplar Streets. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 11, 1996 — Late-night shoppers at a Safeway along route 29 in Burtonsville proved to be too late to buy essential supplies like milk. The stores were mostly empty through thursday with news of more snow coming thursday night. (Thomas Graves/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 8, 1996 — Don Hamilton, the Doorman at the Tremont Plaza Hotel on St. Paul St., clears the sidewalk with a snow blower. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 14, 1996 — Sam Kim of Baltimore takes a break from his studies at Johns Hopkins University to enjoy a hot drink and the warm sun on one of the few benches that had no snow outside the Light St. Pavilion of Harborplace. He felt cooped up being inside on such a mild day, so he ventured to the inner harbor. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 7, 1996 — Richard Von Postel, of Cockeysville, operates a snow blower to clear a sidewalk near the Town and Country apartment complex. Von Postel works for the apartment management company. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 17, 2003 — Snow-buried cars are seen in the 700 block S. Patterson Park Ave. (Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 17, 2003 — Paul Shapiro pulls his daughter, Talia, 9, home after a trip to the Giant grocery store on Overbrook Rd. in the aftermath of the 2003 record-breaking snowstorm. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 17, 2003 — A man holds a snow shovel at arms length as he walks in a tire track up an unplowed South Wolfe St. (Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 16, 2003 — Linda Hayrapetian, front, and Thomas White slide down the side of Federal Hill Suday afternoon as the snow and wind sent the wind chill below zero. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 7, 1996 — Tom Clark, of Bolton Hill, has no trouble getting around his neighborhood in the foot-deep snow with his cross-country ski. He is skiing along Lafayette Ave. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)
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- January 7, 1996 –Trucks from the Baltimore County Snow Emergency Center plow roads in Towson during the Blizzard of ’96. (Algerina Penra/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 17, 2003 – Elizabeth Haggerty, at left, was helping her grandmother, Stephanie McNicholas, at right, dig out in front of their home in the 4100 block of Falls Road in Hampden. Watching from the porch at left is Haggerty’s daughter, Colleen. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 17, 2003 — Little Italy resident Rick Carter looks out towards the street from his downstairs family room door as his neighbors begin digging out their cars and sidewalks Monday afternoon. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 19, 2003 — Brendan Maloney, a U.S. Government and History teacher at Winters Mill High School in Westminster, and two friends who are also teachers, have built a “quigloo” over the course of two days in his backyard. A quigloo is a combination igloo and quinzhee, which use different snow building techniques. Relaxing in the roomy interior are Maloney, left, Mary Beth Francis, an English teacher at Westminster H.S., at center, and Steven Kronberg, a U.S. History teacher at N. Carroll M.S., at right. Keeping them company is Maloney’s black lab, Atticus, at left. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 10, 2010 — High winds whip snow off roofs on Park Ave. in Baltimore City. (Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 9, 2010 — Mail carrier Jonathan Edwards gets stuck on Foster Ave. and receives a push from Tim Walton of S. Curley St. (Jed Kirshbaum/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 9, 2010 — Dump trucks filled with snow dumped their loads into the Inner Harbor at the end of Pier Five as another round of storm is expected to drop more snow on top of the already record level of snow in the Baltimore area. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 11, 2010 — Rebecca Girvin leans out the second floor window of her home in the Lake-Walker neighborhood to push snow off her front porch roof. She had trouble extending the broom far enough to push the snow over the edge of the roof. This snowfall brought the total snow accumulation in Maryland for the winter of 2010 to a record-breaking 79 inches. (Amy Davis / Baltimore Sun)
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- February 10, 2010 — Unable to use transportation or walk on sidewalks, David Hart (yellow) and Joe Conta return from working at Mercy Medical Center, walking up St Paul St at Madison St as tree branches are cracked above a car on the right from the weight of snow. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)
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- February 6, 2010 — Driving as a convoy to show the city that they are mobile, Baltimore Police drive along St Paul St as a blizzard continues to stifle Baltimore City, which is under s now emergency after about two feet of snow fell. Forecasts predict several inches more, crippling transportation and services in the mid-Atlantic region. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)
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Polly Fukuhara
Jan 31, 2016 @ 16:12:37
You missed one. I am not sure of the year, but it was maybe 1958. It was a wet, heavy snow that knocked out the power to much of the city. We got ours back on after five days (or so, I was only seven, eight years old). But, I remember hearing news that said some of the city did not get their power on for over a week.