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The most severe winter storm to ever strike southwest Ohio was the "Blizzard of '78."

That storm formed as a low in the Gulf, JP, then moved due north, intensifying as it went. It provided the lowest barometric pressure I've ever observed in western VA. It dropped the temperature here 50 degrees in about 6 hours. We had little snow (immeasureable because it was blown horizontally by the high winds) but wherever it finally rested, it was as fine as talcum power from impacting objects before finally coming to rest. I named that storm "The White Hurricane."

To illustrate how strong the storm was, by the time it reached the Chicago area, it had wrapped its accompanying warm front, that formed strung out to the east of the low, counter-clockwise 270 degrees until it was pointing south, in the position normally occupied by a low pressure system's accompanying cold front. Quite a storm.

Here, the blizzard of March 12-15, 1993, was the worst in my memory: more than 24" of snow, near zero temperatures, gusty winds. In places, streets and highways were clogged with snow. Locally, some farm animals and outdoor pets died in that one.

The Blizzard of '78 that hit the Ohio Valley was actually an all-rain event for the Northeast. That was an incredible winter because just a week later, the Northeast had their own "Hurricane with Snow" and parts of Southern New England had as much as 40 inches of windblown snow. Also, there was massive flooding along the coastline that shut down some school systems for three weeks because they were used as shelters for all those who were made homeless. There were also thousands of cars stranded on the highways around Boston. The snow came so fast and so furious. When it hit, it was a literal "wall of snow."

I remember walking to school that morning (I was 15 then) and it was actually mild - around 40 degrees, but the weather forecasters were practically predicting the apocalypse. So the schools shut down around noontime and I remember walking home (about 2 miles) and I witnessed the most amazing thing. During that walk, it went from being totally calm to being so windy that I had to walk backwards to keep from falling over. About an hour after I got home, I looked out my window and saw nothing but pure white. And it didn't stop for over 24 hours.

There were three huge storms that year. We got two feet of snow on January 20th (in a storm very much like the one today) followed by your Ohio Blizzard that washed away most of it the next week. Then we got the blizzard I just talked about during February 6-7th. That snow didn't completely melt until the end of April!

It was that winter that got me really interested in the weather.