The blizzard of 1888
A.k.a., The Worst Blizzard Ever, resulted in 40 inches of snow in New York in a 36-hour period. A friend writes, "I remember reading a National Geographic story that said the snow fell so hard, and the wind was so strong, that weeks later they found corpses standing erect in melting snow drifts."
The great white hurricane [Infoplease]
The storm of the century [SUNY]
All about snow: picture gallery [NSIDC]