Blizzards, Ice & Cold
When the world froze — blizzards, ice storms, cold waves and the great winter storms that paralysed nations.
Part of Natural Disasters
41 moments in this segment.
- — The 1888 Schoolhouse Blizzard. A sudden blizzard struck the U.S. Great Plains as children left school, killing 235, many of them children.
- — The Great Blizzard of 1888. A blizzard buried the U.S. Northeast under up to 1.3 metres of snow, killing over 400 and stranding New York.
- — The Great White Hurricane. The Blizzard of 1888 buried the U.S. Northeast in snow days after the Schoolhouse Blizzard hit the Plains.
- — The Great Blizzard of 1899. A cold wave and blizzard in February 1899 brought snow to every U.S. state, even Florida.
- — The 1947 New York blizzard. A surprise blizzard dumped record snow on New York City the day after Christmas 1947.
- — The Big Freeze of 1962-63. The coldest winter in Britain in over 200 years froze the sea and buried the country in snow for months.
- — The Blizzard of 1977. A blizzard with hurricane-force winds buried Buffalo, New York, in one of the worst U.S. snow disasters.
- — The Blizzard of 1978. A historic blizzard buried the U.S. Northeast, stranding thousands on highways around Boston.
- — The 1998 North American ice storm. A massive ice storm coated Quebec and the northeastern U.S. in ice, collapsing power grids and leaving millions in the cold.
- — The 2008 Afghanistan blizzard. An extreme cold wave and blizzards killed over 900 people and hundreds of thousands of livestock across Afghanistan.
- — The 2008 Chinese winter storms. Ice storms paralysed southern and central China during the Lunar New Year travel rush of 2008.
- — Mongolia's dzud disasters. The 'dzud' — a summer drought followed by a brutal winter — periodically kills millions of livestock and threatens nomadic herders.
- — The 2010 'Snowmageddon'. Back-to-back blizzards buried the U.S. Mid-Atlantic in record snow in February 2010.
- — The 2010 British big freeze. The coldest December in a century froze Britain, closing airports and stranding travellers.
- — The 2012 European cold wave. An extreme cold wave killed over 650 across Europe and froze the Danube and Venice's canals.
- — The Andean cold snaps. Sudden 'friaje' cold snaps freeze the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia, killing livestock and children.
- — The Siberian cold poles. In Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk, Siberia, winter temperatures plunge below -60°C, the coldest inhabited places on Earth.
- — The 2014 polar vortex. A dip in the polar vortex plunged the U.S. into record-breaking cold in January 2014.
- — 'Snowmageddon' in Atlanta. A few centimetres of snow and ice paralysed Atlanta in 2014, stranding drivers on highways overnight.
- — The winter of 2015 in Boston. A relentless series of blizzards buried Boston under nearly nine feet of snow in the winter of 2015.
- — The 2018 Fukui snow crisis. A record snowfall stranded over 1,000 cars for days on a highway in Fukui, Japan, in 2018.
- — The 'Beast from the East'. A blast of Siberian air buried Britain and Europe in snow and paralysed transport.
- — The 2018 Beast from the East in Ireland. 'Storm Emma' met the Beast from the East to bury Britain and Ireland in snow in March 2018.
- — The 2020 Snowmageddon in St. John's. A record blizzard buried St. John's, Newfoundland, in 2020, prompting a state of emergency and army help.
- — Japan's record snowfalls. Record lake-effect and sea-of-Japan snowfalls regularly bury Japanese towns under metres of snow each winter.
- — Storm Filomena. buried Madrid under its heaviest snow in decades in January 2021.
- — The 'Sanpachi' snow disaster. Record snow buried the Hokuriku coast of Japan in 1963 in the disaster remembered as 'Sanpachi'.
- — The 2021 European deep freeze. Arctic air spilled south in February 2021, bringing snow to Greece and record cold across Europe.
- — The 2021 Texas cold wave. A polar-vortex cold wave froze Texas, collapsing its power grid and leaving millions without heat, killing hundreds.
- — The 2021 Texas freeze. A polar outbreak crashed the Texas power grid, leaving millions without heat for days and killing over 200.
- — The Knickerbocker Storm. A blizzard collapsed the roof of Washington's Knickerbocker Theatre in 1922, killing 98.
- — The 1967 Chicago blizzard. A blizzard dumped record snow on Chicago in 1967, stranding thousands of cars.
- — The 2022 Buffalo blizzard. A ferocious lake-effect blizzard buried Buffalo, New York, over Christmas, killing dozens trapped in their cars.
- — The 2023 Afghanistan cold wave. An extreme cold snap killed over 160 people and countless livestock across Afghanistan.
- — The 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard. An unforecast blizzard trapped duck hunters and travellers across the U.S. Midwest, killing 145.
- — The 2024 Nordic deep freeze. Temperatures plunged below -40°C across Scandinavia in early 2024 in a historic cold snap.
- — The 1972 Iran blizzard. The deadliest blizzard in history buried villages in southern Iran under metres of snow, killing about 4,000.
- — The 2025 Gulf Coast snowstorm. A rare, record snowstorm blanketed the U.S. Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida in January 2025.
- — The 2025 Arctic outbreaks. Repeated Arctic outbreaks in early 2025 brought record cold and snow deep into the U.S.
- — The 1956 cold wave in Europe. A brutal February cold wave froze rivers and killed thousands across Europe in 1956.
- — The Great Lakes Storm of 1913. A blizzard and hurricane-force winds sank a dozen ships on the Great Lakes in 1913, killing over 250 sailors.
