Italian village reportedly sees more than 8 feet of snow in under 24 hours
http://mashable.com/2015/03/11/capracotta-italy-village-8-feet-snow/
An intense storm that passed through Italy last week reportedly dumped a phenomenal 8.4 feet of snow, or 100.8 inches, on the alpine village of Capracotta, Italy, in just 18 hours. If confirmed through reviews by the World Meteorological Organization, the snowfall could rival or break the all-time world 24-hour snowfall record, which was 90.6 inches (about 7.5 feet) in Mount Ibuki, Japan, set in 1927
According to the European weather website MeteoWeb and cited by the Telegraph newspaper, the storm brought life in the village to a grinding halt, outdoing other historic snowfalls that have also hit that community of 1,400. Capracotta is in the Apennines Mountains of central and southern Italy.
The dumping of snow which is the equivalent of getting the average annual snowfall total of Buffalo, New York, except in just one day's time forced residents to climb out of windows and resort to traveling via snowshoes and skis. "Other locals had to dig tunnels from their front doors in order to be able to leave their homes," the paper reported.
Although many people may not associate Italy with historic snowstorms, the high elevations of the country can tally up some phenomenal snow totals under the right conditions. In this case, cold northeasterly winds on the north side of a strong storm system picked up moisture from the Adriatic Sea and shoved it toward the higher elevations of central and southern Italy.