The Blizzard of ’88 in New York City

As the North digs out from last night’s blizzard, maybe it’s a good time to share an excerpt from It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes about the mega-storm of 1888 and the rather obscure origins of our word “blizzard”:

One of the worst winter storms in United States history came to be known as the Blizzard of ’88 after it struck the eastern U.S. on Monday, March 12, 1888 and lasted through Wednesday, March 14, affecting one-quarter of the nation’s population of the time, and isolating hundreds of cities from Maryland to Maine. The storm halted New York and over a dozen other major cities in their tracks, cutting off virtually all transportation and communication.Winds reached 48 miles per hour in New York City, and snowfall averaged 40 to 50 inches over southern New England and southeastern New York State, with drifts 30 to 40 feet high.

Snowdrifts in Middletown, New York covered three-story houses; townspeople tunneled through, shoring up the tunnels with timbers.  At sea, where mariners called the storm the “Great White Hurricane,” winds up to 90 miles per hour and waves up to three stories high were reported.  At least 198 ships were lost, sunk or grounded, with the loss of about 100 seamen.  On land, the death rate from freezing or storm-related accidents and illnesses approached 300, with 200 dead in New York City alone.  For years people gathered on the anniversary of the blizzard to recall the storm.  Others would never be able to forget it, even if they wanted to:  Dozens of babies born during the storm and shortly after it were named “Blizzard,” “Storm,” “Tempest,”  “Snowdrift,” “Snowflake,” and “Snowdrop.”

The origin of the word “blizzard” is a bit hazy. Some etymologies link it to “blizz,” which was in use in New England as early as 1770 to refer to violent rainstorms.  Other sources suggest a connection with “blaze.” Still others say it was used to denote a “hail of gunfire.” After the Blizzard of ’88 hammered the east coast of the United States then hopped the Atlantic and struck England, the London Times reported the word had long been in used in the English Midlands, where “May I be blizzered” meant to be “bowled over, or knocked off [one’s] feet.”  The New York Times responded indignantly that the word was of American origin and was simply “a bit of onomatopoeia.  Like the hoof-beats in Virgil’s poetry…the word is supposed to sound more or less like the thing it denotes.” This notion is supported in our day by The Oxford English Dictionary, which reports the word is probably “more or less onomatopoeic.”

When the big storm of 1888 finally reached Germany it was already widely referred to as the “American Blizzard.” German newspapers reported the word originated from the German “blitz.” The contemporary American author Gary Lockhart corroborated the German claim (in his book The Weather Companion) with what he claims is the first printed mention of “blizzard,” in a newspaper in Esterville, Iowa, in 1870:  “Many of the early settlers in this area were from Germany, and when witnessing the severe winter storms, would use the German expression ‘Der Sturm kommt blitzartig,’ meaning ‘the storm comes lightning-like.’  The transition from blitzartig to blizzard was a natural language progression.”