Do you still love snow days, or are you dead inside? Not that they mean much anymore; the rise in at-home learning due to COVID-19 led to many schools across the country promising to do away with weather-related closures and make our kids struggle with STEM instead of risking their lives hurdling down a hill on a sled.

Car buried in snow
Giant snowstorms mean your responsibilities have been canceled (Jupiterimages)
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That being said, there will always be something magical about getting an absolute snow dump. I still remember walking outside my house in Ulster County as a 6-year-old and literally wading through the powder that had piled up to near chest-height. So, while we sit and wait for our first big snowstorm of the year, let's check out the largest snow falls in the Hudson Valley over a twenty-four hour period by county.

Yes, this is literally a measuring contest. So let's whip out the ruler and get down to business. (And no funny business here, we're following science).

Henry Mandel
Anyone else play King of the Mountain on these bad boys? (Henry Mandel)
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Dutchess County: 24 inches

Dutchess county, the home of our studios here at WRRV, comes in dead last on the snowfall list (sort of, you'll see what I mean in a second). Over 120 years ago in 1895, Dutchess County set their record when 2 feet of snow covered Poughkeepsie.

Columbia County: 24 inches

Okay, technically there's a tie for last place. Not that 2 feet of snow is anything to dismiss. This snowfall was slightly more recent, with the town of Hudson nabbing Columbia County's record in 1925.

Putnam County: 25 inches

To quote the great Dominic Toretto: "it doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile", and Putnam county only needed an inch to edge out Dutchess and Columbia counties. Carmel was the lucky town to set Putnam's record in 1947.

Just like there was a tie for last place, the same goes for first place...

A lone hiker traverses the icy waterfalls of Minnewaska State Park.
The snowiest county in the Hudson Valley has some great winter views (Henry Mandel)
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Ulster and Orange Counties: 29 inches

My home county of Ulster and my current county of Orange share the title of snowiest Hudson Valley county, although they happened in entirely different decades. Gardinerville, in Orange county, has their record weather back in 1961, where Ulster was the most recent. Slide Mountain got their massive dump in 2010.

So will we have a record year in 2022. Probably not (sorry to be a buzzkill), but who knows?? If we had a hurricane hit New York in 2021, who's to say we won't get a few feet of powder.

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