It could have been worse. The snowfall in your driveway Monday pales in comparison with the blizzards of Baltimore’s recent past. Like the slow-moving storm of 2016, which dropped a record 29.2 inches of snow on the city, collapsing roofs and paralyzing traffic. Or the back-to-back blizzards of 2010, dubbed Snowmagedden which, over six days in February, walloped Baltimore with nearly 45 inches of the white stuff.

More lately, central Maryland has escaped winter’s wrath. The last storm of note, on Jan. 3, 2022, brought 6.8 inches of snow to the metro area, canceling flights at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and knocking out power to more than 50,000 homes. But that was a dust-up compared to the February blizzard of 2003, historically the area’s second-biggest storm, which dumped 28.2 inches of snow and brought the city to a halt.

That storm was a killer, claiming the lives of eight people who died of heart attacks while shoveling and nine others who perished of carbon monoxide poisoning while sitting in snowbound cars. Moreover, the roofs of more than 100 buildings caved in, including that of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.

The third-largest snowfall in city annals was in January 1922 when 26.5 inches fell, halting trains and trolleys in their tracks. The blizzard trapped office workers, who curled up at their desks overnight; others, who tried in vain to tromp home, took refuge in police stations and slept in jail cells.

“The streets were deep, white morasses into which automobile wheels sank to the hubs and men and women floundered to their knees,” The Sun reported.

Yet many seemed to take the storm in stride:

“In the snow-filled streets were thousands of pedestrians stumbling homeward over trolley tracks long untouched by cars. Some were in groups and sang little choruses as they tramped. Some pelted others with snowballs.”

The 1922 blizzard proved a blessing for the jobless, 5,000 of whom found work clearing city streets for 35 cents an hour.

A 1983 storm, which struck just before Valentine’s Day, dropped nearly 2 feet of snow (22.8 inches), sometimes at the rate of 3 inches an hour, accompanied by thunder, white-outs and 40 mph winds. Drifts hid first-floor windows of some city buildings. In Annapolis, a 3-year-old fell out of a third-floor apartment window and landed in a billowy drift, unhurt.

In 1996, a two-day blizzard in January walloped Baltimore with 22.5 inches of snow, freezing traffic for all but the hardiest of transports.

“People who ventured out walked into the middle of the road, the only place to get decent footing,” The Sun reported. “Any store that was open seemed to have a steady stream of customers, especially if it sold milk, bread, toilet paper or rented videos.”

An MTA bus on Charles Street crept 50 feet in two hours. Police officials fared better as they navigated snow and ice-strewn roads in the four-wheel-drive vehicles they’d confiscated from drug dealers during earlier arrests.

Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.