Remember the Blizzard of...

[Ed/KB1HYS]

the recent posts about the big snow got me thinkin' about Big Storms that occured.

Remember the Blizzard of '78?  Late season storm, I remember being able to climb out of the 2nd floor attic window and sledding down from the porch roof.

Lost power for 5 days, ate by candle light, and used the fireplace for heat (I guess it wasn't so truamatic an experience back then). Mum put the perishables in the snow bank outside the back door, Dad built a box around them to keep Critters (and our dog) from getting at them.

My old man was a mail man and the following day he was back at work, even though the town didn't get to our road for a couple days after.  most folks around us were staying home.

It seemed a big adventure then, I was 11.

[W2ZE]

Blizzard of '77 for me. I was 7 and the snow was as deep as me in spots. Dug out snow tunnels all through the yard.

Blizzard of 2010: almost as much snow as then. I measured 32" inches on our back deck, and front patio. Frederick, MD officailly received 31".

[W9GT]

Looks like we might have another blizzard coming here in Midwest.  We really dodged the bullet and only got 2-3 " of snow last weekend, while you guys were getting hammered on the east coast.  Looks like we could get a least a foot out of this latest storm for a potential total of 15" or so, on the ground, but still a long way from 31"!  
Glad my neighbor has a truck and snowblade though.  He kindly plows us out when needed.  Great wx to work on the antennas!

73,  Jack, W9GT

[KB2WIG]

                       1966


now, that was a blizzard




klc

[WA1GFZ]

We had one in '59 or '60 with 7 foot drifts in the back yard in Ct.
Back then anything under 8 inches you had school

[KB2WIG]

In '66  syracuse ny reported 42 inches, Oswego, ny reported 100 inches. This coupled with 60 mph winds made for an interesting few days.....

klc

[W2ZE]

but still a long way from 31"! 

Expecting another 15-20" here in central MD tonight through tomorrow. Went and cleared off the deck last night, and as much snow from the roof. I have used my snow blower more down here in Maryland than I did when I lived near Rochester, NY 3 years ago. I was almost begging my in-laws to take it since they live in Buffalo, because I didn't want to move it. They turned me down which is incredibly fortunate for me.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

You were lucky, Mike: Joe/PJP sold his snow blower because he never used it in 5 years, and as soon as he did, LI got clobbered with snow. He now has a new JD blower, which will assure that snowfall in his immediate area is minimal. Apparently that didn't help in your case, but at least you're prepared for it!

Hope you dig out in time for Timonium.

[W2ZE]

Hope you dig out in time for Timonium.

Yes, I hope the snow melts by then at least.
I thought the same thing, and actually the first 2 winters here were tame ( 4.5" in 2007-08, 8" in 2008-09 ). I thought that the snow blower was overkill, and possibly warding away the snow gods! Instead, were just making up for lost time. Snow record for Baltimore is 62" in a season, were at 60", and easily going to surpass that. Average snowfall for Rotten-chester is about 120", and I think they are well below that this season.

I will post pictures tonight when I get home.

[N3DRB The Derb]

It just started snowing in Charles Town@10:00am. We got enough food to feed Haiti. 

[N2DTS]

And I hear its warm and short of snow up in Canada for the winter olympics! 50F up there!
Global warming changing weather patterns?

We wont have any ice at the north pole, its all going to be in Washington DC?

Brett

[Ed/KB1HYS]

There'll never be a long cold spell in DC, way to much HOT AIR being generated.

We'll be getting some of this storm too.  The snow blower's ready, and the shovels are handy. 

[WB2EMS]

I remember that blizzard of '66. We were sledding out the second floor windows  in Webster, east of Rochester. No roads for about 8-9 days in our area, no school for almost 2 weeks. My dad was taking a sled and walking to town every other day to get food and stuff - fortunately the power stayed on.

When they came to open the roads up, the plows couldn't move the snow. They ended up using a big front loader to carve out some working room and then got the plows full of sand or salt for weight and with a running start would crash into the snow and grind to a halt, flinging snow up 10 feet on either side of the road. Back up and get another running start and do it again and again. Must have been hard on the gear, and the drivers! Those snow towers on either side of the road were massive and were around well into the spring.

I was at college in Potsdam NY for the blizzard of '76. That happened on the weekend of a big Clarkson/Cornell hockey finale in Syracuse, and the storm hit while people were trying to get back to Potsdam. 10% of the school was missing en route the next day they estimated. One of my housemates spent 5 days holed up at a good Samaritan's home who took him and a vacuum cleaner salesman in when they got stranded in the storm outside of watertown. We were getting stories of tanks from Ft Drum pulling snowplows to clear roads down there.

The local CB folks were trying to run messages from the north country down to Watertown to find folks, but the traffic was getting so garbled with the undisciplined message handling and being repeated so often that it was unusable. I helped establish a partnership between the local cb'ers and hams to hand us the traffic, where we could hop it in one jump via a repeater to watertown, and hand it back off to the cb folk to find the missing and then forward the reports back. That worked out pretty well. At one point the state police sent a car to get me and my station to the local AM station so I could forward those reports to them directly for dissemination.

It's interesting when mother nature flexes her muscles. Seems less 'fun' as the years go by though. 

[K3ZS]

Storm of the Century - March 1993

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/primer/winter/century.html

[W4EWH]

Remember the Blizzard of '78? 

In 1977, I accepted a job at KRUZ-RM in Santa Barbara, California. I arrived on New Year's Eve: December 31, 1977.

When the news of the storm hit, I and a girl I'd met went down to the beach in Santa Barabara, stripped down to bathing suits, and had my cousin take a picture of us laying in the sand on a beach towel. Needless to say, we were freezing our keisters off, but we braved the elements long enough to get the shot.

I sent my copy back to Massachusetts as a post-card, with just one line on it: "I hear y'all are having a tough winter!". I got some rather rude remarks by way of reply. 

My girlfriend sent hers to New Jersey. She told me a year later that she hadn't heard the end of it yet!

But, all things considered, it was worth it.

Bill W1AC

[KM1H]

I remember 78 as if it was last week....now where was I???

Oh, yeah. In a 64 Falcoln with a warm 302, 4 speed, positraction rear and studded snow tires.

Left Cambridge, MA around 5PM made it up Rt 2 to 128 and up RT3 and thru Lowell with no problem other than manuvering around abandoned vehicles. That Falcoln had excellent traction and plenty of power to bust thru drifts.

A mile from home a drunk blows through a stop sign and creams my RF fender.  He goes to the slammer, I get towed home even tho its drivable. Stupid cops!

I pull out the damage, fix a few things and its on the road the next day. About a month later I find the same year in a boneyard with an as new replacement fender on it with the paint still perfect on the inside.

I thought the blizzard of 47 was worse down on LI but I was a lot shorter then

Too many blizzards over too many years but the ones in Kansas 1960-61 have to be at the top of my experience.

Carl

[W1RKW]

The worst storm that I remember was in 65/66 in the Chicago suburbs and it wasn't a snow storm but rather an ice storm.  I was 5 years old.  Power was out for days.  My old man jury rigged the gas furnace to supply heat. 

[Ken - K2UPI]

For me it was 1966 in Syracuse.  I was working for Ma Bell. We usually took our tools home in case of an early call out.  I got a call on Sunday afternoon wanting to know if I could make it 2 blocks up the street to reconnect the drop line to a house with an emergency medical service line.  Borrowing a pair of beaver tail snow shoes, from a neighbor, I shuffled off on my mission.  I spotted the pole across the street from the customer and proceeded to struggle up a snow pile/drift around the pole.  At the top I only had to reach up a little over my head for the terminal box.  Never had to put on the climbers.   

Ken/K2UPI