Dear Tom,
What is the record for the greatest amount of snow ever to occur in one hour in Chicago?
— Jimmy Youlinn, Chicago
Dear Jimmy,
The
National Weather Service
does not track that particular statistic, but we tapped the expertise of Chicago’s resident weather historian Frank Wachowski. He informs us that two noteworthy snow events yielded high-intensity snows. The huge snowstorm of Jan. 26-27, 1967 — the city’s largest snow event — produced a maximum snow rate of 2 inches per hour during the late morning on the 26th.
However, that snowfall rate falls far short of the snow intensity that occurred during a short-duration blizzard only four weeks later in the evening hours of Feb. 23, 1967: 3.5 inches of snow were recorded at Midway Airport in one hour along with zero visibility and winds that gusted to 47 mph.
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