Posted on 01/25/2024 6:33:47 AM PST by Phoenix8
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Forty-five years ago, in late January 1978, the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes regions experienced a once-in-a-lifetime blizzard that crippled the aforementioned regions and set records that still stand to this day.
The devastating impact this event had on those that were affected from mainly Jan. 25-27 could not be fully foreseen. Even forecasters themselves who gave the warning that this big system was on its way were bewildered at its results.
Viewers share 1978 blizzard photos and you can share yours System setup: A strong low pressure system and arctic airmass was dropping southward out of Canada into the northern plains on Jan. 24. At the same time, another low pressure system in association with a disturbance embedded with the subtropical jet stream across the southern United States was taking shape over eastern Texas.
These two systems would undergo a rare merger. This merger would lead to an explosive intensification of the surface low over Alabama and Georgia on Jan. 25 before racing towards the Great Lakes region. The system’s center pressure would end up dropping a remarkable 40 millibars in just 24 hours, and this led way to all-time low barometric pressure readings. More on those pressure readings will be addressed in the stats section of this story.
(Excerpt) Read more at wishtv.com ...
I could share so many, like how our neighbor drove a county snow plow. He slid off the road late at night working and had to sleep on a strangers couch or he would have perished. How me and dad spent nearly the entire next day digging our 1/4 mile long driveway out by hand in drifts 4-5 feet deep.
Still to this day the only time the entire state of Indiana was issued a blizzard warning.
See. Just more proof of climate, uh, doing whatever it wants to do....
Minus 24, then the next day at minus 25 in Cincinnati The Ohio River froze over and I walked from the downtown landing over to Kentucky and back with my youngest brother. If I remember correctly Cincinnati was the coldest spot in the lower 48.
I was in college in the Northeast at the time. I lived off campus with my brother in a 2nd floor apartment. The day after, we were able to open our window and sled down to the street on flattened pizza boxes. The snow had drifted up that high and provided quite a sledding slope.
I was in high school. Got up that morning and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table and not at work. I asked what he was doing and he said go look out the door. I looked out the door for a bit until I realized I could not see anything but white. There ended up being drifts higher than 2d floors. Ours completely covered the cars and took a long time to dig out. Sledful at a time and dump in the back yard.
i was 12 and remember about 2 weeks off school.
power was out for 7-10 days.
heat was no worries as we had plenty of wood (every fall was spent chopping/stacking wood).
always loved getting buried in snow (it can be fun... if you’re prepared)
Memories indeed. Actual chains on tires. Putting railroad ties in the back of the Pinto to give it more weight . . . . Shoveling snow that was waist deep.
This may sound like false bravado/bragging, yet my school might have been out longer than any other school in the nation.
If I recall we missed the last day before Christmas in ‘77 and didn’t go back until around March 1. See some people forget that winter was a whole series of storms with this 1 being the greatest. We had something like a 9 inch storm with ice in Dec., then several more later.
However I have to tell the whole story. Our school, was a consolidated new county school first opened the year before in 76-77. Its furnace went out around the blizzard and it was so new it kept breaking and they couldn’t get all the parts to fix it quickly. I would guess we would have missed about a month total otherwise. (We had terrible and persistent snow drifts for weeks)
“”””Memories indeed. Actual chains on tires. Putting railroad ties in the back of the Pinto to give it more weight . . . . Shoveling snow that was waist deep.””””
Are you sure? I was living on the beach in San Diego that winter and I don’t remember it being like that at all.
Last year I thi k it was? California had massive snowfall, burying towns. There are some videos of it online. And a few years ago snowdrifts in North Dakota were higher that powerlines- photos online show it. Also Buffalo area really gets pounded badly every few years or so- they don’t measure in feet, but yards lol- that winter in California though was really something to behold as the large snow throwers tried to clear roads and get people out of isolation due to the storm.
Lol-
LOL. I was living Northwest of Pittsburgh, PA. It was like that.
Saw a fun y meme yesterday
Woman says “hav8ng a terrible storm today, husband keeps looking through the window. If the storms keeps up I guess I’m gonna have to let him in”
That was half my life ago, but I was quite warm living in the south of France at the time.
I was in Maine that year too. Remember driving out van after the roads finally got plowed, it was an adventure for sure. We didn’t need a ladder for the roof shoveling, just walked off the edge of roof onto the snowpile after we cleared the snow.
I remember it well. I was in high school at the time. Loved the time off. I had a 1973 Nova at the time, and it was the only car on the block to start after the cold temps settled in. Went around the neighborhood giving folks a jump to the get their cars started.
You aint from Buffalo, man.
We had moved out of the snow belt in ‘75. Then watching the ‘78 blizzard on the news was very much a “glad we got away from that crap” time.
Remembering a call from my boss then...
Boss: “Can you make it in to work?”
Me: (looking out apartment window at my battered old Pinto in the parking lot, buried up to the roof, and all the rest of the lot just as deep)”... um... no.”
I live in central Illinois. We get a big blow about every 10 years or so. The city can dig out in a couple days, but it can be a week for the rural people because of the drifting. It wasn't all that long ago(10 years?) that people had to be rescued from an interstate by the national guard during a south central Indiana blizzard.
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