Blizzard of ’96…..25 Years Later

As we work our way through these troubled times, that for the most part, I prefer to let others write, blog or vlog about, I did want to reminisce a bit about a 25th anniversary.

It has taken me forever to write this as I’ve been easily distracted by the world around me. That includes the challenges put forth by bringing a new puppy into our lives.

That being said, this is the anniversary of the great Blizzard of 1996.

That storm which began on Sunday, January 7th ended with a few lingering flurries in the early morning hours of Tuesday, January 9th after dumping 20.2″ of snow in New York City and as much as 30″ in many nearby suburbs.

New York City schools were closed for the first time since the February storm of 1978. In those days NYC public school never closed. We live in a different world today, but back then it was a big deal.

I believe that storm ranks 6th on the all-time biggest snowstorm list for Central Park record keeping. In addition that winter is still the snowiest on record with over 75″ of snow for the season.

With that being said, it seemed to snow almost every weekend. As history would have it, it was also the start of my career at WNBC as the weekend on air meteorologist.

I had made my debut earlier on WNBC as a freelancer filling in for Joe Witte in September and October of 1995. When Al Roker moved to the Today Show permanently, Janice Huff took his place on the 6PM & 11PM newscasts which then opened up the weekend position. I was offered the spot and as luck would have it, guess what my official debut weekend was to be? Yes. January 6-7, 1996.

So this blog is really not going to be statistical or weather specific, but more about my personal experience of those crazy 4 days, 25 years ago.

The weekend shift back in those days was a double shift for both Saturday & Sunday. You would handle the morning shows on both days as well as the 6 & 11PM shows both nights. The turn around from late Saturday night into Sunday morning was tough and by 11:30 PM Sunday night I was usually getting a little toasty.

Of course I was so excited to be working at NBC in New York, my hometown, I often ran on the adrenalin generated by my thrill to just be there.

OK. Back to my first weekend. The morning show on the weekends back then, always sent the weather person out into the field. It might be a fair, a car show or interview or fundraiser. However, sometimes, it wasn’t much of anything. It was like trying to make chicken salad out of chicken sh#t. Well my first remote fell into that category. They sent me to Hoboken and the Malibu Diner. I thought, well what do I do with this? There’s a significant snowstorm coming and I’m doing 5 or more live shots from inside a New Jersey Diner.

Needless to say, if memory serves me, it was pretty lame. I asked a patron how they enjoyed the food at the diner. Another if they were ready for a snowstorm. I literally teased a spot about how the waitress was going to show me how to pour that perfect cup of coffee…..stay tuned! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Kind of amazing I ended up lasting 24 years there, now that I recant that story.

I remember the forecast at the time I was calling for 4-8 inches of snow with higher amounts north and west of the city. As I ended up doing for three years almost every weekend, I finished the show, went back into the city and stayed in a hotel to grab a nap before heading back at 4PM to prep for the 6PM newscast.

When I got back to the station I looked at the computer guidance we use to make our forecasts. Back in those days we pretty much only had two computer models that gave us the detail we needed to make a 5 day forecast. Yep. Just 5 days…… the good old days.

The models were the LFM(limited fine mesh) or as we would jokingly call it, the Limited Fine Mess model. The other model was the NGM(nested grid model) of course we weather nerds called this one the No Good Model.

On with the story. I remember my first glance at one of the models, the NGM, made me do a quick second take. The amount of snow it was suggesting was no longer 4-8 inches, but more like a foot or slightly more. The LFM however was suggesting considerably less snow and maybe some sleet and rain mixing in.

So I decided to go on at 6PM and keep the forecast in the 5-10″ range but hinted that it could be more based on the storm track and speed in which it moves through. The good thing about having such a big weather event to forecast is that it kept me distracted from being nervous about this being my first “official” weekend on WNBC.

Before the 11PM show that Saturday night, new computer information came out. I remember looking at it and smiling like a little kid to myself. This was going to happen. It was going to be a big one! Possibly a crippling type storm!

I updated my weather graphics and decided to go all in with a forecast of 10-15 inches in the city with 15-20 inches north and west. Keep in mind I got into meteorology because of my love for snowstorms. I was a snow lover. It was like a high for me, when on the rare occasions, we would get a snowfall of a foot or more in NYC. I believe for me, up until that point I had only experienced 4 or 5 storms like that. Now here I was going on the air predicting with confidence a storm of that magnitude. I’m not going to lie. It was a “freak’n” cool experience. I was both the weather guy on TV talking about a big snowstorm coming and the child sitting at home watching with anticipation, all wrapped up in one.

There was a part of me as I was saying the words “10 to 15 inches likely in the city and maybe more”, that had me thinking in my head, “are you sure?” “Really sure?” At that point I was 34 years old and lived through enough snowstorms to know when we were sitting in those rare “can’t miss” situations. Believe me. They are rare when it comes to predicting snow in this area, but this one was a high confidence storm.

The show ended and my co-anchor and friend Jim Watkins asked me, “I know what you said on the air, but is this REALLY going to happen?” I laughed and said, “you better believe it.”

I barely slept that night and we were back on the air at I believe 8AM. The show started later back in those days as well. I remember updating the forecast again as the computer models were both in sync. I was now predicting 15-20 inches in the city and nearby suburbs with higher amounts further north and west.

After my first weather segment of the morning, my news director, Bruno Cohen, called me from his home. Bruno had this very deep, powerful voice. What you might imagine as the voice of God. Well not to compare, but this guy did take a chance on this kid from Ozone Park and now he’s on the other end of the phone asking the question, “is this REALLY going to happen?” I said yes, I couldn’t see how we could miss it. He said, “OK, then I’m calling in all the troops.”

That’s exactly what happened. Every reporter, anchor, weather person, every producer, director or tech was brought in or on standby.

The first flakes began falling late morning early afternoon time from south to north over the Tri-State. We stayed on the air continuously until 4PM, when the only reason we stopped our coverage was for an NFL play-off game. We had wall to wall coverage at night and starting up early the next morning.

There’s a great shot of the weather team together at one point during the storm. Myself and three NYC weather icons, Al Roker, Janice Huff and Joe Witte. It really was and still is one of my greatest highlights in my career. To this day, even though we have endured bigger storms, it’s my favorite of all-time.

I remember continuing coverage going into midday Tuesday. I was wearing the clothes I wore on my remote at the diner from the previous Saturday morning. I mentioned it on the air and of course Al said ” oh, that’s what that smell is in the weather center, it’s getting gamey in here”. Oh Al, got to love him. To me, I was honored. The Al Roker was making jokes about little old Chris Cimino. It was baptism by fire, but I would not have had it any other way.

I’ll leave you with one final image and memory I have about that storm.

Back in 1996 the city was not equipped with big front loaders and snow melters. They would just plow and plow and plow. After a while there was no place to put the snow. I remember piles on the street corners easily close to a story high. People climbing them and taking pictures of the street signs right next to their faces like Park Ave. or Broadway.

What I remember most however, was the peacefulness. The silence of the city. Silence for a good reason for the most part. I was walking around midtown on the Monday and Tuesday nights after the storm. There were no cars, taxi’s or buses. No machinery sounds. Just the sound of voices of people either laughing or grumbling about the mounds of snow they needed to navigate to get where they were going. The city was smothered in a heavy blanket of beautiful white snow that absorbed sound and vibrated a calm to the night like nothing I had ever experienced before.

Since then, there have been two other occasions of experiencing that quiet. However, they didn’t come with a peaceful undertone. They were the evening of 9-11 and any evening during the pandemic lock down. I’ll take the snowstorm any day.

There were a few other funny stories from that storm, like having 5 meteorologists sharing one hotel room overnight through the storm. Or a surprise meeting of a friend from Toledo who was visiting to cover David Letterman’s move to CBS. If I do ever write the book, I’ll include those and many more.

As always, if you got this far, thank you so much and sunshine always!!!