Worst Snow You Survived

D

Damaged Goods

Member
Location
Maryland
Actually, there were two blizzards within a week. Pres. Obama called it "Snowmageddon." My little town totaled 50"; normal for the entire winter is 22" Took the farmer with his huge front-end loader four days of trying until he finally broke thru and got to the top of the hill.

We've had several single storms in the 20-25" range but nothing like this.

https://weather.com/safety/winter/n...owmageddon-snowstorms-washington-dc-baltimore
 

The Blizzard of '78:

The Blizzard of 1978, sometimes known more formally as the Northeastern United States Blizzard of 1978, dropped 27.1 inches of snow on Boston. Sustained winds of 86 mph were recorded in eastern Massachusetts.

Boston was closed to private vehicles for a week, there was no work, few open stores, and no electricity. My sister is a nurse and the hospital was so desperate to get nurses to work that they sent a huge National Guard truck to pick her up. Our car was parked on the street in our Back Bay neighborhood, and it remained buried for over a month. And, most alarming, the one open market in our neighborhood ran out of kitty litter...
 

Worst Snow You Survived​


That's some snow, DG

I guess the winter of 4 and a half feet while living at our mountain cabin was my worst

The novelty wore off rather quick

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Hadn't considered shoveling down into the cabin
 

Damaged Goods said:
Actually, there were two blizzards within a week. Pres. Obama called it "Snowmageddon." My little town totaled 50"; normal for the entire winter is 22" Took the farmer with his huge front-end loader four days of trying until he finally broke thru and got to the top of the hill.

We've had several single storms in the 20-25" range but nothing like this.

https://weather.com/safety/winter/n...owmageddon-snowstorms-washington-dc-baltimore
Click to expand...
I get a message that says "Oops we're having trouble finding your page."
 
MarciKS said:
I get a message that says "Oops we're having trouble finding your page."
Click to expand...
Yeah, I am too and don't know what to tell you. I guess if you go to your search engine and enter "Snowmageddon February 2010" which is what I did originally, you'll get the scoop on the double blizzard.
 
Being born and raised in the Great White North, I have witnessed and lived through many-a heavy winter, where typical snowfalls lasted for days, and where accumulation was in feet, not inches.

Snow storms where schools and highways were shutdown, where towns were brought to a standstill, where limbs on trees were snapped off, where power-lines were brought down, and where snowflakes were the size of silver dollars.

As neighbours, those who were younger and stronger not only cleaned-out their own walkways and driveways of snow, they banned together to help other neighbours (older neighbours) shovel themselves out from under the blanket of white.

Winters where snowbanks became so high, that homeowners could no longer heave their shovels up high enough to land the shovel-fulls of snow up and onto the tops of the snowbanks.

Winters where people ran out of space to shovel the snow.
 
Autumn said:
The Blizzard of '78:

The Blizzard of 1978, sometimes known more formally as the Northeastern United States Blizzard of 1978, dropped 27.1 inches of snow on Boston. Sustained winds of 86 mph were recorded in eastern Massachusetts.

Boston was closed to private vehicles for a week, there was no work, few open stores, and no electricity. My sister is a nurse and the hospital was so desperate to get nurses to work that they sent a huge National Guard truck to pick her up. Our car was parked on the street in our Back Bay neighborhood, and it remained buried for over a month. And, most alarming, the one open market in our neighborhood ran out of kitty litter...
Click to expand...
I lived through that too. The snow was waist deep on our street. No cars, no work, no school. We never lost our power though, thank God.
 
So far I've survived all of the snowstorms that have come my way.

I was a kid during the blizzard of 66. I remember the local volunteer fire department contacting village residents to see if they had room to put up stranded motorists that had been rescued from the interstate. We had a young army fella and an older woman stay with us for a couple of nights until the roads reopened.

The worst part of the big snowstorms for me was that you have no place to put the snow as you attempt to dig yourself out. You make a little headway and then the snowplows come through and fill the mouth of the driveway and you shovel again and again until the snow settles and begins to melt.

The other thing that I've noticed is people lose their perspective as they attempt to fight the snow and end up doing permanent damage to the paint and transmissions of their very expensive automobiles.

This is a now-famous photo from 66 of a snowplow attempting to remove lake effect snow from the roads north of where I live.

imrs.php
 
We were caught on the highway years ago between Toledo, Ohio and the Michigan border by a surprise blizzard. Couldn't go forward, couldn't go back.

It was the three of us (me, husband and our 5-year-old daughter). Nobody had boots, our coats weren't really warm enough and we had one blanket. Did I mention we were in a Pinto? We spent the night huddled in the back seat under the blanket (yes, surprisingly enough, you could get three people in the back seat of a Pinto), occasionally turning the car on for heat. I couldn't decide if we were going to die of the cold or die of carbon monoxide poisoning. We were peeing in a paper cup when needed (boy was THAT fun!).

About 3 a.m., a plow came by and cleared a path to the next exit, where there was a motel with a zillion people laying around on the floor. A nun (yep, a real nun) shared her room with us for a few hours until we were able to go south on the highway (north was still closed) and get a room until the highway opened the next morning.

We never took a trip in the winter after that, no matter how good the weather report was, without heavy coats, blankets, boots, water, snacks, etc.
 
I grew up near a highway in the frozen north. At least once a winter, there would be a massive snowstorm and people would be stuck on the road. My dad would bundle up, take a lantern and lead a family or two back to our house to spend the duration. We made some really good friends that way.

My freshman year in college, a young male student contacted me. He had looked in the student directory and recognized my name. He said, "Do you remember the night we spent playing monopoly in front of the fireplace?" I was really surprised to find out his was one of the families my dad had brought home from the road.
 
Damaged Goods said:
Actually, there were two blizzards within a week. Pres. Obama called it "Snowmageddon." My little town totaled 50"; normal for the entire winter is 22" Took the farmer with his huge front-end loader four days of trying until he finally broke thru and got to the top of the hill.

We've had several single storms in the 20-25" range but nothing like this.

https://weather.com/safety/winter/n...owmageddon-snowstorms-washington-dc-baltimore
Click to expand...
I live in Abbotsford Canada (West Coast ) If we get a few inches of snow it's are snowmageddon so far this year I haven't seen a flake of snow and that's okay with me .
 
Living in the Midwest, there is always the chance of a major snowstorm, but I can't recall any that dropped more than 18 or 20 inches, at a time, and those have been rare. There have been a couple, through the years, where we had to stay home for a couple of days, until the roads were cleared....the last one I can recall was about 10 or 12 years ago....it took me almost a full day to clear the driveway down to the road with my tractor and blade....and the piles of snow I created didn't melt for almost 2 months....a cold nasty Jan/Feb.
 
Autumn said:
The Blizzard of '78:

The Blizzard of 1978, sometimes known more formally as the Northeastern United States Blizzard of 1978, dropped 27.1 inches of snow on Boston. Sustained winds of 86 mph were recorded in eastern Massachusetts.

Boston was closed to private vehicles for a week, there was no work, few open stores, and no electricity. My sister is a nurse and the hospital was so desperate to get nurses to work that they sent a huge National Guard truck to pick her up. Our car was parked on the street in our Back Bay neighborhood, and it remained buried for over a month. And, most alarming, the one open market in our neighborhood ran out of kitty litter...
Click to expand...
If that's the one that began on a Sunday, we got 23". I stupidly left the car up near the house. Wife and I shoveled 636' of driveway. Took us a week. In subsequent years, we left the car at the bottom when a big one was forecast, and then eventually had a deal with the farmer across the road and his big John Deere front loader which came with a snow scraper in the rear.
 
Aunt Bea said:
So far I've survived all of the snowstorms that have come my way.

I was a kid during the blizzard of 66. I remember the local volunteer fire department contacting village residents to see if they had room to put up stranded motorists that had been rescued from the interstate. We had a young army fella and an older woman stay with us for a couple of nights until the roads reopened.

The worst part of the big snowstorms for me was that you have no place to put the snow as you attempt to dig yourself out. You make a little headway and then the snowplows come through and fill the mouth of the driveway and you shovel again and again until the snow settles and begins to melt.

The other thing that I've noticed is people lose their perspective as they attempt to fight the snow and end up doing permanent damage to the paint and transmissions of their very expensive automobiles.

This is a now-famous photo from 66 of a snowplow attempting to remove lake effect snow from the roads north of where I live.

imrs.php
Click to expand...
Recall a Maryland blizzard on a Sat. in Jan. '66. Senior in college and working part-time in a grocery store about 10 miles away. Somehow with a '58 Chevy, made it home in one piece.
 
While working over the Xmas holidays (plant shutdown) one winter I arrived, trudged through 4 feet of snow to get to the entrance. Our parking lot was completely snowed in. I called 'Roads & Grounds' for removal help (I had been out shoveling until exhausted). They said they were too busy with the other parking lots. My retort was, 'There are several programmers and tech support people scheduled in but if they can't get here, then I assume that our payroll could be delayed.' within 30 minutes there were 3 large loaders clearing the parking area I had started.

'Don't mess with anyone's wife, gun or money'.
 
Damaged Goods said:
Didn't realize that snow tires are still being sold. We just use all-weather tires and hope for the best. :)
Click to expand...
LOL!

As a young child my dad always put on full-on winter tires on the car every fall, and my husband has done the same. The all-season version will suffice, though in our climate you won't get anywhere near the performance, traction, or safety out of an all-season tire as you will a true quality dedicated winter tire.

I gather with the newer vehicles that are all-wheel drive, a set of quality all-season tires would work satisfactory.
 
Let me change this to the worst winter storm. It was about 15 years ago. We had this freaky weather. It was warmer in the sky than on land. And it rained, and continued raining for several days. The problem was that ice began to amass on the trees. Soon each branch had a good two inch coating of ice. The trees couldn't handle all that weight, so the limbs just snapped off. If you went outside, it was like hearing guns go off. Limbs were falling all over the place. The power went off for five days. Tree limbs littered the roads, they were totally unpassable, plus a 1 or 4 ton limb could fall anytime, And you couldn't go anywhere. I just couldn't believe that a huge thick tree trunk could bend so that the top of the tree was touching the ground. Also, the power wasn't just out in my tiny section, but from parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. While it was raining, we had temps like -5 at night. We did have shelters to go to keep warm, but they wouldn't take pets. I had three cats. So I stayed home trying to heat the place with a gas stove and candles. I live in the sticks with a well, without electricity to the pump, I didn't have water., but I do have a lot of pine trees.
 
The worse storm I can remember happening where I was living was 1993 in Pennsylvania from March 13th to March 15th. The reason I remembered it was because it started on my Dad's Birthday. It was the last birthday my Dad had before he passed away. Fortunately, we lived right across from his house so my family was able to see him and celebrate with him, not even imagining it would be his last Birthday. Sadly my sister and her family couldn't.
 

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