On This Date: More Than 400 Died in America’s Most Catastrophic Blizzard

On March 11, 1888, New Yorkers woke up to temperatures in the mid-50s and what meteorologists had predicted would be a routine spring rainstorm. By midnight, wind gusts were clocking in at 85 miles per hour, and the city was buried. By the time it ended three days later, the Great Blizzard of 1888 had killed more than 400 people, paralyzed the entire East Coast, and permanently changed the way American cities were built.

138 years later, it remains the most catastrophic winter storm in American history, and one modern meteorologists still study as a benchmark for what severe winter weather can do to an unprepared population.

A Storm Nobody Saw Coming

The failure of prediction was as remarkable as the storm itself. The U.S. Signal Corps (the predecessor to today's National Weather Service) had confidently forecast that the incoming southern storm would either dissipate or head out to sea. Instead, it collided with a powerful cold front from Canada, and what had been mild spring weather turned catastrophic within hours.