Great pics from a stunning storm in a stunning year. Unfortunately I didn't experience it -- I was living in Texas at the time. Blacksburg has nearly 80" of snow that year - its best year on record, if memory serves me.

Great Pics but doesn't help my depression from lack of snow this season......

During that storm, I was stuck in Worcester, MA for my grandmother's funeral.

I remember that storm... I was driving back to JMU and my car died as I pulled into Harrisonburg. Had to have it towed back to my apartment, where it sat for a week, then it was at the dealer for 3 weeks being fixed (something blew on the engine block) while I walked to and from school in 3 foot snow drifts (the roads had been cleared, but the sidewalks were hit and miss).

JMU also closed school 4 out of 5 days that week, which was the first week of the spring semester (and closing school was virtually unheard of for JMU, for any reason). That winter was pretty hard, and hung around for a while, as I recall - I believe there were snow flurries as late as April, and the entire month of May was rainy and cold. The weather finally turned around, rather abruptly, in June.

1996 was a wierd weather year in general for the Shenandoah Valley - at the beginning of fall semester '96, Hurricane Fran came way far inland and flooded campus, causing school to close again. Bizarre.

Didn't we get rain a few days after that storm that caused major flooding.... i seem to remember a storm when i was in high school that we got off a week or so due to snow, came back and had to leave early because of flooding...

i remember having weeks off from school... i miss winter :(

Yep - that was about the 20th or so of Jan...thats the one that washed out the C&O Canal, if I remember correctly. Fran tore it up again later in that year...similar thing happened after the Blizzard of 03 when we got 2+ inches of rain at about 36 degrees about 7 days after the snow...I remember being at homecoming at GMU and playing beer pong under a canopy in a downpour with mounds of snow piled in the parking lot outside the Patriot Center. We came dang close to back to back blockbusters that year...

2003 and 1993 were awesome snow events, but 1996 was so utterly different from those two that it didnt compare. I also was in Western FXCo in Centreville and the snow was truly waist deep in the open areas and I'm 6 feet tall. The only other time in my life that I had experienced that deep amount of fresh powder was skiing in Tahoe. It was closer to 3 feet on the ground after that Friday clipper went thru...unreal and I dont expect to see one like it again around here.

I remember being at Salisbury University in Salisbury, MD. I believe Salisbury had more snow than ever recorded in one year that year. Anyone know what the official total was in Salisbury for the 1996 blizzard or where I could find that information? Thanks!

I hope there is a storm like that this year!

Ah, 1996...too bad that all we get nowadays "dissolves" into plain old rain as we get closer to the storm. But New England got it big overnight! And anyone watching the Packers on Saturday got a good dose of snow on the frozen tundra! Wait a minute...Did I hear someone saying that we should get no higher than the twenties next weekend??? That would sure be a change! Maybe our snow (or ice) number is up next week. Plus, it is said that Eli Manning is better on the road than at home because he's a warm-weather QB who can't take the swirling windswept afternoons at the Meadowlands. Well it seems that the NY Giants and Eli are headed for the one place on the road guaranteed to be WORSE than the Meadowlands (or Foxborough) this time of year! Please consider: If we have temperatures in the twenties on Sunday won't there be Ice Bowl conditions down on the tundra at Lambeau? Perhaps they could have let the Cowboys win so that Favre & Co. would have to go to Dallas. Anyway things around here could get interesting for our three day weekend. It could be mighty cold for my dance Sunday night.

Just wanted to note that around 12:30 this afternoon, there were snow flurries in Tysons. Perhaps a sign of things to come..

Wow, I lived in Western FFX Co. during 96 storm as well. Lived in Centreville just off of Westfield Blvd, in the apartments just behind the Safeway.

Remember the gov't being shut down for most of the week. When it did reopen, I had to catch a ride with a friend who had 4WD. Met him early in the morning at the corner in front of Safeway while standing on plowed snow that must have been 8-10 feet high.

Looks like models for Thursday's storm are continuing the warming trend. NWS now saying that it may start as a brief period of snow Thursday afternoon, but change over to all rain as temps climb overnight.

Also noticed that after Sunday, temps begin a slow moderation back towards normal.

wow this is a depressing winter one rain storm after another. could have been snow. well there is always next winter see ya then.

Wow. I had forgotten about the floods as well. I was living in WV. I remember standing on the old(and now rebuilt)bridge between Shepherdstown and Maryland being in awe of the force of the water and the debris. I never thought the towpath would ever be the same. Though the Izaac Walton League tried to get the fish that had gotten caught in the actual canal, many died and oh the smell. When it was all said and done, the fish enriched the soil and the towpath came back.

I don't know ... I'd be up for a big storm, but maybe something shy of 1983 and 1996, both of which I lived through here.

I enjoyed 1983 at the time. I was in high school... what's not to love? But in 1996 as a "grown up," the novelty of digging out and trying to get around wore off for me after a while.

You've seen one snow storm, you've seen them all. How about some shots of spring time for us warm weather lovers?

That was such a fun storm! My boyfriend and I were snowed in for days - we built fires, drank wine, walked around in the snow.

Fast forward 12 years - we're married now with four kids!

Steve Takoma Park:

There will be plenty of warm weather pics come spring and summer :). For now though, this is our time, let us relish in it! We don't ask for snow pics to be posted in mid-July =P.

SoMoCo:

I think there are three types of people. People who hate snow, period. People who loved it as a kid, and sort of like it as an adult but get tired of it quickly.. and people who love it period. Sounds like you are in the middle :). Us true snow lovers though border on infatuation.. I know of people who live in the Tug Hill Plateau (lake effect zone, hundreds of inches of snow per year are not uncommon) who STILL get excited about it. That's me. In my ideal climate, no rain would fall between late November and early March - only snow. (Yeah, I definitely live in the wrong part of the country).

That winter storm was the most intense I have seen in my lifetime. I remember my friends all got snowed in at our place for close to a week. Great memories. I had to help my folks shovel the deck so it wouldn't collapse under the weight of all the snow.

Its hard to believe we can get such a monster storm based on our past winters.

Jaradel, JMU Closes all the time now. I guess times were different in 1996.

Seriously, it doesn't take an inch now.

Jim, you are right. I loved snow as a kid -- more the merrier. I love it now -- within REASON, LOL! And I guess I love the IDEA of it.

Now at least (vs 1996), I have two little girls. So I will be watchful and hopeful for them -- and for all of you TRUE CapWX snow lovers. I guess a 1996-style storm would be pure bliss to you, as to them.

(My older daughter is getting like some people around here -- "It will NEVER SNOW AGAIN!" Despondent!)

Living in Ca, I never saw snow storms. Thanks for capturing a wonderful and gorgeous moment in time. Love the pictures!

I remember that I wasnt allowed to go outside because I was too short. My parents had to dig a path for me to walk around to get to the street.

Chase - JMU almost never closed before the winter of 1994, the infamous Ice Storm, when they kept campus open in spite of several students falling and breaking bones, until a PROFESSOR fell and broke a limb. Then they decided to close school when the weather got treacherous. Considering that they have more students off-campus than on-campus (or did back then, before they built all the new dorm space across the interstate), I can't imagine attendance was very good during that week of ice. Mind you, I was finishing my senior year of high school when that happened, so what I am telling you comes secondhand from older classmates. Given that, though, those same older classmates were in relative shock when JMU closed school for the '96 snowstorm. I'm actually surprised that they close school more often now - I do remember, in my time there ('94 thru '98), having to go to school during lighter snow events, even as much as 8 inches once.

I lived in Staunton for the blizzard of '96... stuck a yard stick into the snow in the middle of our cul-de-sac and it disappeared... we had about 37.5" at our house... now that was a snowstorm!!!!!