Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a hard blow.

1829		Virginia Literary Museum 16 Dec. 418: Blizzard, ‘a violent blow’ [DAE].
1835		D. Crockett in Meine Crockett Almanacks (1955) 3: I will show ’em how to [...] take a blizzard at a bear.
1846		G.W. Harris ‘A Sleep-Walking Incident’ Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) XVI Sept. in Inge (1967) 66: I resolved to give him a parting ‘blizzard’.
1856		Sacramento City Item (CA) n.p.: When some true archer, from the upper tier, Gave him a ‘blizzard’ on the nearest ear [Thornton].
1863		J.B. Jones Wild Western Scenes 76: I’d gin him a blizzard, if I died for it.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 443: Blizzard, a term referred back to the German Blitz means in the West a stunning blow or an overwhelming argument.
1884		G.A. Sala in Illustr. London News 23 Feb. 171/2: Blizzard. The philologers in American slang refer back to the German Blitz; and its original meaning in the Western States appears to have been a stunning blow, or an overwhelming argument [F&H].
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 568: Most of these, of course, had their brief days and then disappeared, but there were others that got into the common vocabulary and still survive, e.g., blizzard, to hornswoggle, sockdolager and rambunctious.

2. a stinging remark, esp. to end an argument or as a parting shot.

1835		D. Crockett Col. Crockett’s Tour to North and Down East 16: Not knowing whether he intended to compliment me, or abash me [...] I concluded to go ahead, and give him and his likes a blizzard.
1851		‘A Sleep-Walking Incident’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 175: I resolved to give him a parting ‘blizzard’.
1872		see sense 1.
1884		see sense 1.

3. a large fire.

1845

W.T. Thompson Chronicles of Pineville 153: The devil will make a blizzard of my soul for it.

4. a rifle shot or volley of shots.

1834		D. Crockett Narrative of the Life of D.C. 79: I saw two more bucks, very large fellows, too. I took a blizzard at one of them and up he tumbled.
1846		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 6 June 117/3: We turned one of our 18 pounders to bear on the mass and gave them a ‘blizzard’ to help them along [DAE].
1892		J.C. Duval Young Explorers 103: I wish Mass Seth only let me gib ’em one blizzard, I bet I make ’em yelp toder side dere mout.

5. a drink of alcohol, a ‘bracer’.

1881

Butte (MT) Daily Miner 14 Apr. 1/3: ‘Blizzard’ [...] There has been extensive use of the word in Pennsylvania for many years [...] A drink of any intoxicant, generally applied to whisky. Synonymous with the slang ‘a slug,’ ‘a smile,’ ‘a jigger,’ ‘a bumper.’ Example: ‘Let’s take a blizzard.’.

6. (US drugs) cocaine [a play on snow n.¹ (2a)].

1985

T. Wolff ‘Leviathan’ in Back in the World 181: They’d [...] bought Helen three grams of white-out blizzard that lasted the whole night.

7. (drugs) a cloudy white substance seen in a crack pipe.

1992		T. Williams Crackhouse 81: As I pulled, I could see the cloud gathering, what they call the ‘blizzard’.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 3: Blizzard — A white cloud in a pipe used to smoke cocaine.