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Whiteout

"Dresser drawers are the best," said David Nance, 10, standing on a hill in Raleigh, North Carolina. Marie Hennessey, 24, disagreed. "The skillet is the fastest," she said. Dresser drawers? Frying pans? When it snows in Raleigh--and that does not happen very often--ordinary household items become the slickest of sleds. Last week kids--and some adults--raided their homes to find the fastest way to slide down a wintry slope.

The Blizzard of '96 roared in over the weekend of January 7 and left broken records in its path. More than 20 states were affected by the storm. Thirty inches of snow blanketed Philadelphia, the biggest snowfall ever recorded there. New York City, which got 20 inches, had not been hit so hard since 1947. West Virginia got the most snow: 48 inches. In some places, the wind blew the snow into big drifts that were as tall as 20 feet. Streets, highways, airports, schools--even entire cities--were forced to shut down.

What Makes A Blizzard?
Weather experts said the snowstorm was a classic northeaster. A northeaster is a great, swirling storm that whips up the Atlantic Coast. As the storm travels up the coast, it gathers moisture from the ocean and throws it at the land. Last week the moisture combined with the bitter cold to produce snow--lots of snow.

In order to be declared a blizzard, a storm must drop so much snow and blow so hard that objects that are less than a quarter of a mile away cannot be seen. At times during the Blizzard of '96, it was impossible to see more than a few feet away. Blizzard-force winds are at least 35 miles an hour. Last week the winds in some areas howled at more than 50 miles an hour.

An Unexpected Holiday
Kids were doing some howling too, as school systems from Alabama to Maine canceled classes. It was the first time in 18 years that New York City's board of education declared a snow day. Steven Aguirre, 11, a sixth-grader at Public School 19 in New York City, spent the day playing in the snow. He also helped his dad dig out his car. "That wasn't any fun," said Steven. "But I liked not going to school."

Cameron Martin, 14, of Atlanta went sledding on a local golf course. "It was great!" he said. "We stayed out until our clothes got frozen."

Students in some school districts were given the week off. A lucky break? Not quite. Many of them will have to make up the lost days in June.

Mountains To Move
As the snow began to fall in New York City, 1,600 snowplows were sent out to keep the streets clean. But the snow was falling so fast that as soon as a plow got to the end of a street, it had to turn around and start all over again. About 100 million tons of snow fell in the city. Some New Yorkers were seen skiing across town. One doctor skied from his home to his job in a hospital emergency room.

Emergency rooms were busy places last week. Hospitals reported many broken bones, the result of slipping on ice. The storm also caused at least 80 deaths. Some were the result of car accidents, and some (mostly in elderly people) were caused by heart attacks brought on by too much snow shoveling.

Is There More Snow Ahead?
As the week ended, another storm hit the East Coast. Snow- weary residents talked of moving to someplace where it snows less. How about Alaska? Normally, by this time of year, Anchorage, Alaska, would have had about 68 inches of snow. This year the ground is covered with a mere 8.9 inches.

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Did You Know?

• It is so quiet after a snowstorm because the air pockets between snowflakes absorb sound.
• It would take 5.34 trillion snowflakes to cover a football field with one foot of wet snow. All that snow would weigh 539 tons.
• On average the amount of water in 1 inch of rain equals the amount in 10 inches of snow. Water looks clear because light travels through it, but snow is white because its surfaces reflect light back to the eye.
• The greatest 24-hour snow on record in the U.S. was 76 inches in Silver Lake, Colorado, on April 14-15, 1921.
• Blue Canyon, California, is the snowiest city in the U.S., with an average annual snowfall of 240.8 inches.
• There are more than 14 Inuit words for snow. Aqilluqqaaq means "new, soft snow," while qiqiqralijarnatuq means "snow that is squeaky underfoot."
• Snowflakes are created inside clouds when tiny ice crystals collide and stick together. No two snow crystals are exactly alike.
• Large star-shaped snowflakes may grow to be 2 inches to 3 inches wide.

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