It's snowing hard tonight here in Massachusetts.  That reminds me, are there any New Enganders out there who remember the Blizzard of '78?

I do remember it but I was out of the path of the storm. Yes, we are now getting bombarded with snow now. It looks like there is about 2 feet on the ground now and it is still coming down!  :o




Cat

10 inches all together here in new York.It stopped.Just hope it doesn't snow anymore. :D


Howard

You guys can send some snow my way if you like, and in exchange I'll send you some sunshine!  :D

I grew up in NE Ohio.  I remember that storm quite well.  In fact that 77-78 winter was the worst winter in general that I can remember.  

My grandfather died that December of 77.  The weather was so cold and blustery on the day of the funeral that they couldnt bury him.  Plus on that exact day I was in kindergarden (I wonder why they made us all even come in at all that day) and fell on my face and cut my chin open.  My other grandparents had to come get me and take me to the ER since my parents were unavailable.  It probably took close to 2 hours to drive the 9 miles to the hospital.

Then about a month later my sister was born in the middle of another blizzard.  I think my parents were stuck at the hospital for a few days.

It wasnt all bad.  The fun thing was that we had some awesome snow forts and snowball fights.  There was so much snow and we were so short that you could practically make big mazes in your yard.  You could have some pretty fun football games too!

Those are my fondest memories of that winter.

A common myth about the Blizzard of '78 is that there was record accumulation.  There was significant snowfall.  Perhaps two feet where I was in southern New Hampshire.  

What made the difference was that it was a true blizzard.  The hurricane force winds caused incredible drifting. It also knocked out power and damaged structures, all of which was exascerbated by the extreme cold.

February 5-6 the storm raged.  It started on Monday morning.  By the late afternoon the roads were impassable.  The news made quite a scene of the thousands of commuters stuck on the 128 beltway.  If my father hadn't left work early, he would have been among them.

We were fortunate to live in an old farmhouse with a coupld of huge woodstoves.  The power konked out early, and people were IN TROUBLE.  Not only was their heat gone, but their pipes were froze solid by Tuesday morning.  Again, we were lucky.  We had an old artesian well.  We could draw buckets from the well and boil them on the stoves.

I remember watching in awe the wind blowing the snow into drifts.  It was very dark.  The house was lit by Coleman lanterns.  Tuesday morning all I could see from the the south side of the house was a sheet of white.  I went out through the attached barn and blasted my way through into a sort of blank surreal landscape....and it was STILL snowing.

My Dad managed to keep the driveway cleared with his snowblower.  The roads were only blocked for about a day.  The power came back on Thursday.

It was one of those times were it was nice to be eight.  It was much more stressful for the grownups.  My big sister got really stressed out.  She went into the 1/2 bath off the kitchen to see a solid ice pillar in the faucet and the john completely iced up! LOL  That did it, she burst into tears.  She also got unnerved by constant thumping of snow clumps blown from the tree boughs onto the house.

Everyone we knew managed to avoid disaster, and the aftermath was kind of fun.  The snow stuck around for long time.  I had the same tunneling, snow-forting, snowballing, sledding fun that Jeff mentioned.  

The accumulation of drifts was one factor for depth, but the other was the fact that an earlier storm had already dumped two feet of snow in January.  What an adventureland for a little kid!

Buffalo, NY, made the news as the buried city.  Buffalo had only a foot of snowfall, but as those from the Great Lakes know, that's only the start.  The lake effect is the real story.  All the snow that fell over Lake Erie just howled right off and buried western New York, and Buffalo in particular.  

I'll never forget that picture of the people perched at the edge of a fifteen foot snow crater they just dug and looking down on their car!

I remember the Blizzard of 78 well.  Here in Central Ohio it was pretty bad.  We lived in a bi-level house and the snow drifted up past the upstairs window.

Also, my dad had this little beater Mazda that he used as a work car.  It was stuck in the snow.  This guy was driving down the street with his pickup truck and a chain and was charging $10 or $20 to pull people out.  Well, he put the chain on the bumper of the Mazda, put the other end on his bumper, and it ripped the bumper right off his truck.  The guy was astounded.  He put his bumper in the bed of his truck, told my dad he didn't owe him anything and drove off.  That was classic!   ;D