Few signs of what was in store (40TH ANNIVERSARY OF DA BIG SNOW IN CHICAGO)

Daily Southtown - Chicago ^ | January 21, 2007 | DONNA VICKROY, Staff Writer

[Chi-townChief]

Twenty fours hours before all chaos would break loose, National Weather Center meteorologists forecast “a chance of snow” for Thursday, Jan. 26, 1967.

Had they known then what they know now, they might have called for “a big chance of snow” or “a chance of big snow.”

As in many recent years, the winter leading up to the Blizzard of ’67 had been a mild one, said Mark Ratzer, senior forecaster for the National Weather Service’s Romeoville office. “We were in the 50s on Jan. 21 and 22.”

Two days before the snowstorm hit, Chicago’s high temperature was 65 degrees and the low was 44, both records that still stand today.

But on the 25th, the day before the storm, a cold front moved through the upper Midwest. The band stretched from southern Canada to the Texas panhandle.

With arctic high pressure building north in Canada and a low pressure system developing in the southern states, a stationary frontal boundary settled over the Chicago region.

On the morning of the 26th, forecasters updated their predictions, calling for 4 inches of snow. Then, by mid-morning, 4 to 8 inches.

Though they issued heavy snow warnings all day, their cumulative estimates fell far short of the actual precipitation. In all, 19.8 inches fell in a 24-hour period. Before it was over, 23 inches were on the ground, crippling the city and giving its residents memories for a lifetime.

To have a storm of ’67’s magnitude, Ratzer said, certain conditions have to be in place, namely a stationary frontal boundary needs to exist and there must be a large gradient of temperatures along the front.

The ’67 storm had all the makings of a newsmaker: warm and moist on the southern front, cold and dry up north.

The extreme temperature fluctuation causes a low pressure system to build and increases the jet stream speed, Ratzer said. The result is a wicked blend of wind and snow.

Often, there are warnings of tumultuous things to come.

“Usually rain or even thunderstorms precede such a snowstorm,” he said. On the evening of the 24th, there were thunderstorms and reports of wind damage and funnel clouds over city’s Southwest Side. The gusting 48-mph winds collapsed a building under construction at 87th Street and Stony Island.

Little did Chicagoans know, that was only the beginning. The high pressure boundary, centered over Lake Superior, kept cold dry air pouring into the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast states on the southern end of the front fed warm moisture into the storm.

In between, Chicagoans went about their business.

Then the snow began to fall, and fall.

Howling winds and lake effect precipitation led to drifts. Roads closed, cars were abandoned and life as Chicagoans knew it came to a screeching halt.

Ratzer was only 3 months old at the time, but he remembers his father telling the story of how his flight from Montreal to Chicago that day was canceled, so he had to take a train into Union Station. He ran a few blocks to catch the commuter train at Northwestern Station, but just missed it. Stranded, he spent the night in the station.

The 1967 blizzard still holds the record for greatest snowfall in a 24-hour period and greatest snowfall from a single storm.

Source: “A Look Back at the January ’67 Big Snow” by Jim Allsopp, warning coordination meteorologist for NOAA’s National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office. To read more, visit www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display.

[Condor51]

I remember the '67 blizzard like it was yesterday.

I was just a few months out of HS (June 66), no car and had to take the bus to work (west of Midway Airport). I finally wound up 'walking' (crawling and falling) the last five blocks through 30" snow drifts on the parkway between Western Ave and Western Blvd from Archer Ave (37th St) to home at 42nd St. With nothing on but Thom McCann shoes, shark skin pants and obligatory 'Guinea Jacket' (Black, Cabretta Leather)

I think I stood by the radiator (steam heat for you youngsters) for an hour when I finally got home. I was cold and frozen as 'heck'.

(However, my Thom McCann pointy toe shoes with Cuban heels held up fine through all of that. All us cool guy 'Greasers' wore Thom McCann's)

[Chi-townChief]

I was in high school in da Heights (Chicago Height, of course) at the time. We were waiting for the 2-1/2 mile bus ride home and we were told the bus was stuck and another was on the way. The teachers all bugged out and tried to get home as best they could the boys' dean stayed with the kids until the school was finally cleared. He probably ended up staying there all night. We finally got home about 6:30 or 7:00 overjoyed at the prospect of a few snow days.

My dad worked father north at about 142nd and Cottage and he and a bunch of other guys ended up leaving their cars in the lot and piling into someone's little Rambler for the ride home. The managed to get through all the high snow and stuck cars, getting out to push when necessary, and he made it home a little before midnight. I can't remember how or when he retrieved the car but we didn't seem to have any problem with food shortages or heat or anything like that.

My wife, who's a bit younger than me, lived in Roseland at the time remembers her father pulling her to the store on the sled to get things.

Being as young as I was, the snow made for a fun week but I can imagine how it sucked for anyone with any responsibilities.