Bob definitely was the first to go big in 96 but to be fair he was only like 15 mins ahead of everyone else...its just he was on the air as the evening guidance came in, back then the ETA and NGM started coming in around 11pm, and I guess that was the run where the models caved and came north...and he broke in before his normal weather timeslot to tell everyone a huge snow was coming, top 5 ever. They didn't have the normal graphics and forecast prepared it was all just on the spot based on what he just saw. Everyone else caught on very soon after.
But what made that moment so memorable was that Bob Ryan was by far the most conservative and almost always under predicted snow, so him saying that made it all the more memorable.