FULTON – After hearing there were bigger winter storms than the Blizzard of 1966, including ones from 1947 and 1958, Jim Farfaglia, a Fulton-based writer, penned his second book on Central New York snow.
“Historic Snowstorms of Central New York,” coming out later this month, is a collection of stories from the mouth or pen of those that experienced major winter storms. Farfaglia previously wrote “Voices in the Storm: Stories from the Blizzard of ‘66,” but wanted to learn more about Central New York’s wintery history.
“After I wrote the Blizzard of ’66 book people kept telling me their storm stories,” Farfaglia said. “Some folks insisted that I’d written about the wrong storm; that 1947 or 1958 was worse. That got me wondering how far back I could go to find interesting winter weather stories.”
Farfaglia added that his earliest entry came from 1717 to be exact, with a little help from the national archives.
“The Fulton Library helped me dig up some books that are in the national archive,” Farfaglia said. “I was able to find this great book, [“Early American Winters”] by David Ludlum. It was a book about major snow storms in the U.S. in the 1700s and 1800s, and there were a few from Oswego in there.”
Beyond the national archives, Farfaglia spoke with locals from over 100 towns and villages in the region who experienced the weather phenomena or had recalled stories from their family members. Throughout the generations of stories, there was one common theme: survival.
“People’s lives were in danger,” Farfaglia said. “We don’t really have these kind of extremes anymore, I guess hurricanes would be one thing, but snow storms, they hold us up for a while but they don’t endanger us like they used to. Some of those early stories, people didn’t know if they were going to survive.”
Farfaglia decided to use 1980 as a cut off for the book, since after that there were technologies like the doppler radar and the Weather Channel that changed how Central New Yorkers experience snow. Of the winter survival stories, the Year with No Summer really stands out to Farfaglia.
“I think it was [1816], and they called it ‘the Year with No Summer,’ because for some atmospheric problem there was no sunshine and there was no summer,” Farfaglia said. “Crops failed. People were going to starve to death.”
With survival comes a strong community. Farfaglia shares stories of snowmobile drivers bringing life-saving insulin to those in need and men trekking through snow to the closest town for any food they could find.
“The stories that were the most traumatic to me were people that went into the storm with primitive snowshoes,” Farfaglia said. “There was one story from Mexico … He walked from Mexico to New Haven, which was the next town over, to buy yeast so the baker could make bread. He was the hero of the community.”
This was the “heartiness” Farfaglia wanted to capture, something he believes was centered around taking care of your neighbors and the community.
While community is a theme that Farfaglia uncovered during his writing process, his favorite part of the book was one of the early chapters and the creativity he was able to showcase.
“As I kept researching, I kept getting this image in my mind of a single lake effect snowflake and how phenomenal that snowflake is,” Farfaglia said. “I took that image, and I created a chapter to explain lake effect snow through the eyes of a single snowflake, the journey of the snowflake. That was really fun for me.”
Farfaglia will hold several events to promote the book, the first is a book launch and conversation with the City of Oswego’s historian, Mark Slosek. That will take place at River’s End Bookstore in the City of Oswego on Thursday, October 20 at 6 p.m. Farfaglia will also be at Parthenon Books in Syracuse on Saturday, October 22 at 1 p.m. for another book launch and at Steamer’s in the City of Oswego on Wednesday, November 2 at 7 p.m. for their History on Tap event in which he will share a presentation based on the book.
Farfaglia is a local writer and shares a monthly history column with Oswego County Today. His most recent piece shares a story from New Haven.
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