WBRZ - Baton Rouge

After a stretch of almost spring-like weather, sections of the northeast experienced episodes of the season's first blizzard on Tuesday. "Blizzard" originally meant "a stunning blow," often referred to a boxer's knockout punch. Davy Crockett, no relation to Jennifer, used the word in reference to a barrage of rifle shot at a deer and to "taking a blizzard" to his prey. On March 24, 1870 the editor of the Iowa newspaper, the Easterville Vindicator, described a massive wind-driven snow event as a blizzard. He compared the event to a sever snowstorm that K.O.'ed the city. The following Spring, an Iowa baseball team changed its name to the Blizzards and within ten years numerous newspapers from New York to Canada were referencing their winter storms as blizzards.