AccuWeather.com

By John Kocet, Senior Meteorologist

Jan 2, 2012; 7:15 AM ET

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Photo by Michael Vesia, Photos.com.

You know folks, over the past 5 decades I have been witness to many great winter storms but none have been more memorable for me than the Christmas Eve storm in 1966.

The storm was by no means a record setter but it came at a perfect time. I mean, how often do you get a big snow on Christmas Eve. Plus the storm occurred just when I had decided to make weather forecasting my career.

This particular storm was a classic nor'easter that came right up the Eastern Seaboard. Heavy snow was widespread from mid-Atlantic region to New England, and as much as 2 feet of snow fell from eastern Pennsylvania to the Hudson Valley.

Surprisingly, a day prior to the storm (December 23), most forecasters were saying that the worst of it would come no farther north than Virginia.

In Connecticut, where I lived, there was only mention of some light snow for Christmas Eve. The next morning, I was overjoyed to learn that the storm was coming right up the coast, and that a heavy snow warning had been issued for my area.

Okay, now let's get to the big stuff. Here are some snowfall records for the United States and for that matter all of North America.

The most in 24 hours is 76 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado, in April 1921. The record snowfall for one storm is 189 inches at Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl, California, in February 1959. The most snow in one season is 1,140 inches at Mount Baker, Washington, during the 1998-1999 winter.

All those are pretty impressive but here is the real coup de grace. In Oswego, New York, on January 26, 1972, 4.8 inches fell in 30 minutes and 9.1 inches fell in 60 minutes! Some places in the world might have had more snow than that in one hour, but I haven't found any yet.

Here is something else. A place called the Tug Hill Plateau in Oswego County had 141 inches of snow during an incredible lake-effect storm from February 3rd to February 12th, 2007. Since I like snowstorms, maybe I should spend a a few days up there.

And speaking of lake-effect snowstorms, there is going to be a doozy over the next few days.

Northern Michigan will get right in the thick of it starting tonight, then the rest of Michigan will see flurries and squalls Sunday. The eastern Great Lake snowbelts which include those in northeastern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania and Upstate New York will get into the heavy snow bands Sunday night and Monday.

Keep in mind that these heavy snow bands are typically only 10 to 15 miles wide. Within the band, it is maybe snowing at 2 to 3 inches per hour, while on either side it's hardly doing anything. These bands also shift back and forth which adds to the difficulty of figuring out who will get the most.

Once the heavy snow bands form it becomes pretty obvious who is getting the worst of it, but until then precision town by town snow forecasts are not possible.

That being said, rest assured that there will be spots like Tug Hill Plateau in Upstate New York that will be getting 2 to 3 feet of snow by Tuesday night.