You could see the top three or four inches of his van in the snow. Snow drifts of 10 to 20 feet made travel virtually impossible, stranding an Amtrak train and thousands of vehicles and travelers. The flurries began Friday, Jan. 28, and continued for days. Sure, Lake Erie may have been frozen over for quite some time. The Guard didnt even slow down! Hurricane force winds of 86 mph, with gusts up to 111 mph, and heavy precipitation, dropping at rates of up to 4 per hour, combined to create zero visibility conditions, making travel impossible and knocking out power in many areas. Ten-year-old Peter Gosselin, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, disappeared in the deep snow just feet from his home's front door and was not found until three weeks later. But at the same time, the Empire State is absolutely beautiful when it looks like a snowy winter wonderland. The Feb. 2 Democrat and Chronicle contained a startling report that wholesale suppliers said the community was running short of food. "Big blow triggers mammoth paralysis, road chaos." I will never forget the Blizzard of 78 here in Ohio! In Canada, the storm caused blizzard conditions across southwestern Ontario. My husband was stranded in Pawtucket, RI, at least 20+ miles away for 3 days. Actually once the engine was lowered out of the car the ice/snow made it easier to slide it out from under the car and then make the repair. On January 26, the third-lowest atmospheric pressure recorded in the mainland United States, apart from a tropical system, occurred as the storm passed over Mount Clemens, Michigan. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Slowly, over the coming days, Buffalo began to dig out. NOTE: Unofficialrecords show a one-day snowfall of 30 inches on Feb. 15, 1837, and multi-day storms totaling 30 inches on Feb. 2-7, 1845 and Feb. 4-6, 1854. The combination of high tides and extreme weather resulted in broken sea walls and extensive coastal flooding. Explore Rochester's past and learn what may be in store for its future. Weather forecasting in New England is difficult, and meteorologists had developed a reputation as being inaccurate. He teaches a journalism course at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. We still talk about that storm when weather threatens similar to The storm of 78. Bring it on, they say. I rolled until sideways until he could reach me and pull me out. I had stopped at a truck stop because I was sleepy. This was in Columbus, Ohio. We were still digging out of that when the Big blizzard came along. I was thankful that I was nursing my son so we didnt have to worry about sterlizing bottles and making formula with no electric! [3] In many areas in Central and Southern New England, the snow falling at night turned to an icy mix that left a notable layer of solid ice on every external surface. The Sentinel reported: Joy riders and persons who decided to visit Aunt Minnie just because they havent seen her for a week or so were bring stopped by Fulton County police and sent home.. Ah, yes! On March 3 and 4, 1999, a blizzard dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on Rochester. With some pretty unpleasant winter weather expected in coming days, its fitting that this week marks 42 years since the blizzard of 77. Locally, it started slowly but shut down Rochester on Feb. 7, 1978. A severe blizzard is characterized by wind speeds of 45 mph or higher accompanied by a great density of falling and/or blowing snow that frequently reduces visibilities to near zero, along with temperatures generally 10 degrees or lower. Still, scores of people got ticketed. I also remember the 1978 Blizzard. Some records will show that the storm took a total of 29 lives. This was the second day of a three-day event that became the biggest snowstorm on record here. Remember it well! Winds gusting up to 111 miles per hour (179km/h)[5] caused drifts that nearly buried some homes. Fourteen people died on I-95 near Boston because snow piled high enough to prevent poisonous exhaust fumes from escaping from their idling vehicles. In Brampton, Ontario, (northwest of Toronto) on Thursday afternoon, school buses could not get through deep snow to the then-rural campus of Sheridan College to take students home. People had resumed their normal lives by March 1, but light snow continued as crews struggled to clear streets and haul away snow. In 2010, we were hit with a horrible Nor'easter, the likes of which we hadn't seen in years. March 1, 1900. Wind chill values reached 60F (51C) across much of Ohio, where 51 of the at least 90 storm-related deaths occurred. On the drive back home it seemed like it was getting colder and colder in the car and I turned on the heat. By December 14, 1976, Lake Erie had completely frozen over. Thanks largely to these back-to-back storms, March 1999 was the snowiest March ever in Rochester. Some 11,666 college-hockey fans in Boston Garden, then the site of the 26th edition of the annual "Beanpot" college ice hockey tournament, held at the time of the blizzard's outbreak, found weather much different from what they had expected. The Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978[1][2] was a catastrophic, historic nor'easter that struck New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the New York metropolitan area. in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. It's safe to say that at least 23 of our residents didn't make it through this storm. Local Product Criteria. Thousands of employees were sent home starting in the early afternoon of February 6,[11] but thousands more were still caught by the storm.