Don Price commented after the story on the 2011 and 1967 snowstorms for Chicago.

"...I thought you might like this story: the 21.6 inches of snow reported in the Jan. '99 storm makes it the 2nd greatest snowfall total in Chicago history, but local ABC meteorologist Jerry Taft made quite a stink at the time, claiming that all of his measurements of that storm were several inches less that the official total of 21.6. 

Taft opined that Mayor Daley wanted a total placing the snow total in the top three snowfalls in Chicago history in order to deflect any criticism of the city's snow removal efforts. You may remember that the combined snowfalls of January and February of 1979 wound up causing Chicago's mayor at the time, Michael Bilandic, to lose the next mayoral primary election against Jane Byrne. Her big campaign issue was how poorly, under Bilandic, the city responded to removing the snow! Only in Chicago..."

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Dr. Andrew McFarlane, the head of the Political Science Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago told this tale:

"The weather did play a major role in the overturn from Mayor Michael Bilandic to Jane Byrne because Mayor Bilandic was seen on TV as saying that the side streets were being plowed while TV was showing in a split screen they were not being plowed, making him look stupid."

Since the roads weren't cleared, residents had to rely on trains to get them around. As if Mayor Bilandic didn't have enough problems, some snowed in city train stations were bypassed by trains, leading to unforeseen racial problems, and a shift in Chicago politics.

Dr. McFarlane: "There were problems of that the public transit was picking up white people from the suburbs at the ends of the line and running trains non-stop downtown, leaving African-Americans standing and waiting at the platforms. And the African-Americans overwhelmingly voted for Jane Burns.

Two months later, Jane M. Byrne, running on a reform platform, defeated Mr. Bilandic in the mayoral primary. See the January 1979 storm ranked #5.

There were similar examples how mayoral failure to take storms seriously prematurely ended a political career. One was in New York City. It was was 1969....the year with Camille, the first moon landing, the unexpected super bowl victory by the Jets and World Series by the Mets and the multiple blizzards of February 1969 in the Northeast. 

February 8th, forecasters were brimming with confidence: rain, wind and sleet, they said, just a chance of snow. A typical weather pattern, they assured viewers in the second week of February 1969.

But snow started falling that Sunday the 9th, it didn't stop. Ten inches by 7 p.m. By midnight, 15 inches in Central Park, 20 inches at Kennedy Airport. The entire Northeast was paralyzed under mountains of snow.

I remember at Lyndon State, the students and I looked back at that storm. The storm track was a perfect one for snow for New York but 850 temperaturees were borderline. Models had predicted a typical storm with the snow inland and mix in the city but very strong vertical motion kept the temperatures through the lower 10,000 ft nearly isothermal at 0C. This allowed for maximum moisture and snow accretion onto falling flakes from levels above where significant vertical motion and saturation occurred with temperatures that were ideal for dendritic snowflake formation. Very heavy snow resulted and the forecast turnover to rain never occurred.

Hundreds of motorists were trapped on the Tappan Zee Bridge, thousands more on the New York State Thruway as the blizzard shut down the road between New York City and Newburgh. Rescue crews lifted 2000 motorists caught in deep drifts at Kennedy to safety after many had spent up to eight hours in their cars. Inside the airport, 4,000 stranded travelers were entertained by Soupy Sales and Goldie Hawn. Parked planes were turned into overnight lodgings. One man said it was better than a lot of hotels he had stayed in.

The blizzard prompted a political crisis that became legendary in the annals of municipal politics, nearly brought down the administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay and offered an instructive lesson to elected officials in the politics of snow removal.

The city’s environmental protection administrator was upstate and unreachable, and nearly 40 percent of the city’s snow removal equipment was defective because of poor maintenance, both factors that hampered the city’s response."

“For three days, the city was in a state of near paralysis,” wrote Dr. Cannato, an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Not until Wednesday did schools, streets, subways, airports and other infrastructure begin to return to normal operation.

In Queens the streets were impassable, and residents were all but barricaded inside their homes.

There were no buses, taxicabs or delivery vehicles, and no trash or garbage collection for days.

Mr. Lindsay’s predecessor, Robert F. Wagner, had spent an enormous amount during the last major blizzard, in 1961, but the Lindsay administration was wary of going over budget. And there were rumors that sanitation workers - still angry about the Lindsay administration’s heavy-handed actions during their strike in 1968 — were deliberately ignoring Queens to sabotage the mayor.

Two days after the storm, Mayor Lindsay, in response to complaints from Queens representatives, toured city neighborhoods. Starting out by limousine, he shifted to four-wheel drive vehicles before traveling Queens by foot to survey the snow piles. He was booed by Queens homeowners. One woman screamed, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” In Fresh Meadows, a woman told the mayor, “Get away, you bum.”

The death toll rose again to 42 dead and 288 injured; more than half of which took place in Queens.

There were no buses, taxicabs or delivery vehicles, and no trash or garbage collection for days. The snow storm closed businesses for days and while garbage piled up among the snow-drifts, delayed food deliveries caused panic in city supermarkets, and shop-owners were accused of price-gouging. Two NYC Sanitation workers were suspended for collecting $100 from Queens residents for removing snow from their streets.

Note how 5 storms in the last decade are in the top ten for New York City.

On Christmas Eve 1982, a snowstorm throughout the Denver area overwhelmed the city’s 45 plows. Mayor William H. McNichols Jr., Denver’s mayor since 1968, was ousted the following May by an upstart challenger, Federico F. Peña. In upcoming posts we will look at Mid-Atlantic, Rockies and western snows.

We expect another big snow year especially west and north. We did a lot of posts early in the year on the amazing western snowpack last winter. Use the search or scroll back to the spring to see those.

The graph above did not include 2010/11. More than 60 feet of snow fellin the Sierra high country, most since 1950-51 season when a total of 65 feet fell, according to records kept by the California Department of Transportation.

Seasonal snow accumulation records were set at some ski resorts, including Squaw Valley USA near the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Heavenly Mountain Resort on the lake's south side and Mammoth Mountain, the sprawling Eastern Sierra resort that attracts Southern California skiers and snowboarders.