Crossing the line separating Indiana and Illinois sometimes means dealing with different laws and customs. Readers are asked to share ideas for this weekly feature. This week: Record snowfall.
The blizzard that paralyzed travel on the east coast this weekend was one of the biggest snowstorms ever to hit Washington, D.C., Baltimore and several other major cities.
But it was nothing compared to the snow-depth records for Indiana and Illinois.
On Jan. 28, 1918, Hammond set the high mark for snow in Indiana with 47 inches on the ground.
That tied Indiana with Ohio and Virginia at 31st place on the U.S. snow-depth list, according to the National Weather Service.
The deepest snow ever recorded in Illinois was 41 inches. It happened near Morris, southwest of Chicago, on Jan. 31, 1979, and in the western Illinois town of Astoria on Feb. 28, 1900.
The record snow depth for Chicago is 29 inches on Jan. 14, 1979. That winter also was the snowiest of all time in the city at 89.7 inches.
California holds the national snow-depth record with 451 inches, or 37.5 feet of snow, measured in the Sierra Nevada mountains on March 11, 1911.