Historic Winter Storms of New Jersey

Crippling winter storms are locked in the memories of millions of New Jerseyans.

On December 26, 1947, an unpredicted storm buried Newark in twenty-six inches of snow. A record-setting nor’easter on January 22, 2016, unleashed sixty-mile-per-hour wind gusts, six-foot drifts and snowfall depths of thirty inches in Bernards Township and Long Valley. But no storm was more infamous than the so-called Great White Hurricane. Coming when the science of meteorology was in its infancy, the blizzard of 1888 left tens of millions at the mercy of a vicious three-day nightmare with tragic loss of life and property that no one saw coming.

Author Don Colgan tells the stories of winter’s fury and of those who lived through the most extraordinary winter storms in New Jersey history.

Don Colgan has nurtured a lifetime passion in meteorology, particularly winter storms. A lifelong resident of Central New Jersey, he has written recreational fishing articles and several children’s short stories. Recently retired from a forty-eight-year career in sales and marketing in the field of electrical distribution, Colgan loves storytelling, and his lifelong ambition was to author a book about the historic winter storms that have punished the Garden State through the eyes and words of New Jerseyans who lived through them.