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Top 10 snowstorms in Philadelphia history

Here’s a list of the 10 biggest snowstorms to ever fall in Philadelphia.

Turner Welch climbs the snow covered stairs at the Wynnewood train station underpass on Jan. 8, 1996. A blizzard that year dropped nearly 31 inches of snow on Philly, which remains a record.
Turner Welch climbs the snow covered stairs at the Wynnewood train station underpass on Jan. 8, 1996. A blizzard that year dropped nearly 31 inches of snow on Philly, which remains a record.Read moreREBECCA BARGER / Staff Photographer
    by Rob Tornoe
    Updated 
    Published 

It’s been awhile since Philadelphia has seen an all-time biggest snowstorm.

Nothing has compared to what went down 28 years ago, when a massive winter storm dropped nearly 31 inches of snow on Philly over a two-day period. The city was the epicenter of the Blizzard of 1996 — one of the most extreme weather events in the nation’s history, impacting nearly 40 million people from Virginia to Massachusetts.

The storm stranded vehicles across the city and forced highways to close on both sides of the Delaware River in what The Inquirer described at the time as the “Snowstorm of the Century.”

More recently, a storm in 2010 dropped nearly 29 inches of snow on Philadelphia over a two-day period. Over a five-day period from Feb. 5 to 11, the city was buried under 44 inches of snow.

Nothing on record dating back 1884 has come close to rivaling what happened that 2010 week in the city.

Here’s a list of the 10 biggest snowstorms to hit Philadelphia. Each snowfall total includes at least two days, and the highest one-day total (if the data were available):

Top 10 snowstorms in Philadelphia history