A snowstorm is the general term for a storm with strong winds and heavy snowfall, while a blizzard is a more severe kind of snowstorm, with powerful winds and visibility bad enough to create whiteout conditions. A simple memory hook: every blizzard is a snowstorm, but a snowstorm only earns the name blizzard once the wind and lack of visibility become extreme.
The core difference
A blizzard is a severe, low-visibility snowstorm, while a snowstorm is the broader term for any storm of heavy snow and wind.
- blizzard — a severe snowstorm with strong winds and very poor visibility: The blizzard shut down the airport for two days.
- snowstorm — a storm featuring strong winds and heavy snowfall, of any severity: The snowstorm shut down the highway for two days.
How to tell them apart
The two words describe the same basic weather event at different levels of severity. Snowstorm is the general term for a storm bringing strong winds and heavy snow. Blizzard is reserved for the harshest end of that scale, when the wind and snow combine to create whiteout conditions and visibility drops sharply, often trapping travellers or shutting down roads and airports.
Blizzard has picked up a figurative use too, describing an overwhelming quantity of something arriving all at once, such as being hit with a blizzard of paperwork. Snowstorm has largely stayed literal, tied to the weather itself rather than stretching into everyday speech.
