One of Canada's worst blizzards was P.E.I. versus snowdrifts

This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them.

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It's often interesting to look at weather records. The most snowfall, the strongest winds, the hottest days. It could be easy to overlook this blizzard because it didn't set any records. And that could almost be frustrating to those who lived it because this blizzard was aggressive and is noteworthy.

From Monday, Feb. 22, to Friday, Feb. 26, 1982, Prince Edward Island received snowfalls up to 60 cm. P.E.I.'s yearly snowfall average is 285 cm. So not a huge deal. The 100 km/h winds, however, were a big deal. As was the -35 °C temperature.

P.E.I. experienced a ground blizzard, so the extreme winds blew the already accumulated snow all over the island.

The storm completely buried vehicles, snowplows, and trains. Visibility wasn't a thing and the island was cut off from the mainland.

The only way to transport food for people and animals was via snowmobile. Trains were buried so deeply that snowmobiles were able to drive right over them.

The people who started plowing needed to crawl out of the windows to exit their vehicles.

It took two weeks to plow the streets and reopen P.E.I..

To learn more about P.E.I.'s 1982 ground blizzard, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."

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