The Great Snow of 1717
By Sam Kantrow on February 27, 2012, 12:00am
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So I've got a really cool weather calendar sitting here at my desk at work that I look at every day. Mind you, cool for me is probably defined very differently than cool for you. Cool for me means that instead of just showing me the date, it shows me all of this info:
Anyway, I try to check out the weather facts section of the calendar to post on my twitter account, which I’m frequently posting random weather knowledge on. So I came into work this morning and checked out what today’s weather had to show and was dumbfounded at one of the coolest “this day in weather” segments I’ve seen. It forced me to do some research, because of the nature of what happened, and even though it happened almost 300 years ago, I was able to almost instantly visualize what happened.
We rewind back to 1717, and just 3 years ago, tea was introduced into the United States for the first time…and in just 3 years, the entire population of our country will finally reach 470,000 people. It’s a much more simple time, but the weather is anything but simple on this date in history. Starting on February 27th, it snowed. Big deal right?? Well it’s not the amount of snow that fell in just one day; it’s the continuation of snow for 10 days. A nor’easter moved up the coast, dumping a good amount of fresh power across the state. Cloudy skies and cold temperatures remained until the first big storm happened on March 1st. Another snowstorm occurred on March 4th, and finally the worst of the storms occurred on March 7th.
When all was said and done, our state, and much of New England was covered in 5+ feet of snow. Many people could only leave their houses from the leeward side windows…on the second floor! While Boston only received about 40 inches of snow, many places got 8+ feet during the 10 day period. I’ve also seen recollections of the storms, noting that many single story houses were completely covered in snow, even above their chimneys!
So is this a major weather event in the past? In a word, yes! Many people compare this winter madness to the great blizzard of 1888, which could have been one of the most severe storms in our history. I’ve seen some big storms before, but what I saw in this calendar really threw me for a loop. The level of damage was catastrophic, and we’re not talking about property damage. As many as 95% of the entire deer population died from starvation and predators.
You’re thinking, predators? What on earth are you talking about dude? I did a little bit of research on this and found out that because of the huge amount of snow in such a small timeframe, virtually none of the snow melted, and it actually caused the deer to get stuck in the snow. They became literally immovable and easy bait for wolves, which were light enough to get through the snow, and bears, big enough to not be bothered. It lead many towns to apoit “deer-reeves” to ensure the preservation of the deer population (that’s so abundant now).
Livestock losses after a March blizzard
It was also noted that the snow was so high, that the tops of many trees were covered, allowing small animals to graze in the upper branches of orchard crops, effectively killing many of them.
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