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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.

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

My interest in the weather goes way back -- I was born on a farm and farmers live and die by the weather. But like you, my interest in the weather intensified in the 1970s, an active weather decade: blizzards and cold, the super outbreak of tornadoes in April, 1974, (nearest touchdown here was an F2 twister 7 miles away) etc. Had a friend studying meteorology in college in the mid 70s and that also helped pique my interest.

I just came in from snow blowing my driveway and front walk here in Plymouth. (western suburb of Detroit) I'd say we have about 7" on the ground and the snow is tapering off.

I was a senior at U of M in '78, and they sent us all home at 10 am that day. I remember having to walk through a snow drift at my front door, where two hours before there had been bare ground. Later that afternoon I made my way back to campus and spent the evening and night with other trapped students at the University Lutheran Chapel Student Center. We had a great time that evening playing out in the snow. They also canceled classes the next day! It was great.

We were living in Menominee, Michigan when we got an early March blizzard in 1989. We had a 6+ foot drift on our driveway which took over 8 hours to clear. During the night we had strangers stop at our house to warm up in our air lock. They were trying to get to work. A car stalled in front of our house became totally engulfed in a snow drift. I watched as snowmobiler, unaware of what he was driving over, break out the back window. It was an awesome storm.