Talk about a winter wonderland...

Jan. 1, 1964 was a record-setting day for Huntsville. The New Year started with a snowfall of a little more than 17 inches with a blanket of white coating Madison County and, much as it would today, prompting a total shutdown.

The National Weather Service reports snow started falling around noon Dec. 31, 1963 and continued to fall throughout the night. By the start of the new year, Huntsville reported 17.1 inches of snow, Madison and the Shoals had 15 inches and Decatur topped out at 12 inches.

It was the most snow ever recorded in the city since the Huntsville weather office opened in 1958 and, according to a Dec. 31, 2003 article in the Huntsville Times, the worst winter weather since 1899.

The snow event was so much that Huntsville held the title for recording the most snow of any weather service station in the continental U.S. for the last day of 1963.

The snow paralyzed the area and, according Times reports, led to a "helpless city."

"Traffic jams involving thousands of cars backed up on Memorial Parkway and other major and side streets as the wintry blast reached its peak last night. Hundreds of vehicles were abandoned and still stranded today," the reporter wrote in 1964.

While the snow shutdown the city, employees at Redstone Arsenal soon learned Alabama's version of a blizzard was no excuse for missing work.

According to the historians at Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal, Army and National Aeronautics and Space Administration employees who waited until the storm cleared to come to work learned snow events were not considered reason to miss work.

"Post Commander Major Gen. John G. Zierdt and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Director Dr. Wernher von Braun announced that employees must "prepare and equip their vehicles at the earliest possible date so that they may travel positively and safely under emergency conditions," the Redstone Rocket announced.

Arsenal officials used equipment to clear post roads but getting to those roads was almost impossible. That was no excuse, however.

Arsenal officials stated "...granting excused absences was said to be not in consonance with the policy of production and economy expressed by the President, Secretary of Defense and Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."