Remember when you were a child, how you couldn't wait for it to snow? Snow meant two things to you, the first was, that if enough fell then the school would be closed. The second thing was playing in the snow. You could have snowball fights, build forts and when the snow was being removed you could walk on top of the high piles of snow and feel like king of the world. But snow doesn't always mean fun. In some cases snow can mean death or injury. As in everything in life you can have too much of a good thing and it can hurt you.

After the blizzard
Photo Source: Me

A blizzard is one of those really bad winter storms that usually has a very heavy snow fall with brisk winds and bone chilling cold. These are not all requirements of a blizzard but they usually occur together. The snow in a blizzard may give you a temporary condition known as snow blindness. That is where everything seems white. A person caught in a blizzard must take care not to get frostbite or even worse, freeze to death. Even frostbite can cause permanent damage to your body . When you start to get a loss of feeling in your extremities beware. This is often accompanied by a pale look to them.

Many a mountain climber has been caught in one of these storms either ascending or descending and many have lost their lives. In 2003 while climbing a mountain for charity, Inspector Paul Carr, 42, the head of Victoria Canada's Special Operations Group got trapped for three days at a height of 7400 meters on the world's sixth highest mountain. This is over 24,000 feet high. High winds kept gusting the entire time and the temperature dropped to -41 degrees Centigrade. They had only 800 meters to go to reach the top but could not complete the climb due to weather conditions. Because of their height the inspector began to suffer from altitude sickness. He quickly died. This is a case where a blizzard while not being directly responsible for a death was indirectly responsible because it prevented a climber from descending to save his live.

The year was 1978. Ohio had been hit by a blizzard that was traveling across the U.S., but the blizzard was even more severe than normal. It was called the Storm Of The Century. The blizzard had been classified as a severe blizzard with winds over 45 mph and gusting higher. Temperatures were at 10 degrees and below. So much snow was falling that visibility was reduced to zero. But then the unthinkable happened, two low pressure systems collided over Ohio causing the winds to increase to over 70 mph with gusts over 100 mph. These were hurricane winds during a blizzard. The barometer hit an all time low. Thunder accompanied the snow storm. As this storm roared across the country it brought with it death and destruction. In Massachusetts alone 73 people died from the storm. Even in the small state of Rhode Island there were 26 deaths. The destruction by the storm was in the billions of dollars when damage was assessed across the country.

From 1886 to 1888 some of the worst blizzards ever recorded hit the United States. The weather was so severe those years that Teddy Roosevelt, when referring to the raising of cattle, remarked "stock raising on the plains is doomed.". This time in the nations history became known as The Great Die Up. In Kansas the snow was already ten feet high before the blizzard of 1886 hit. 80% of all the cattle froze to death along with about 75 or more people. When the snow began to fall it continued for a month. It got so cold that even in Florida pipes froze and burst and the entire fruit crop was lost.

Snow starting to melt
Photo Source: Me

So you see snow may look nice and in small quantities doesn't do much harm, but get a lot of snow and you may have big problems. Just shoveling snow can be a dangerous thing. Look at all the heart attacks that are suffered every year by people shoveling snow. So in closing enjoy the snow but remember it can also be dangerous.