What is your best/worst snowstorm?

Scooterjim

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I was 12 years old when the blizzard of 78 hit central Indiana hard. It started in the afternoon, Dad made it home wed. evening in a blinding snow that just kept getting worse. for 3 days it snowed sideways with 50 below wind chills. When it stopped the world was silent, until we heard what sounded like a jet plane. It was a tank flying down our county road at full scream, with a rooster tail of snow a 100 foot in the air. The girl up the road was on some type of medical equipment that needed electricity and a tank was the only way to get to her. We helped the neighbor dig out a heavy work van and put on snow chains. Then they sent me on cross country skis to the dozen neighbors along a mile stretch to see if anyone needed anything. They did, cigarettes, coke, and booze. No one needed milk or eggs, just the essentials. I wasn't allowed on the trip to the store, but they had to drive in reverse 5 miles there and back following the tanks trail. I was the hero of the neighborhood when I skied up bearing booze and cigarettes. The next week was spent digging snow forts and sledding off a neighbors barn roof.
 
back in 1991 western ny got slammed by snow and ice, I was a wee lad but it was crazy.
 
The best snowstorm is when they predict snow and it doesn't.

The worst is when the snowblower won't start. I've lived in my house for over 50 years, only once did I need help clearing the driveway. My buddy came over with his 2 kids, his daughter refused to let me pay her, his son stood there with his hand out.
 
Without a doubt, the Blizzard of 78. An entire week of sledding at the best hill ever - a hill we called the 7 bumps on the side of Tufts University. Not too long after '78, they tore the hill up and built on it. And so ended the best sledding hill I ever had the pleasure of sledding down.
 
They're predicting snow for tomorrow so I have to change my answer. I don't remember separate storms, but any storm that dumps over 10 inches I don't like.

When I was a kid sledding was a major event, we all helped our parents clear the driveways and then hit the hill. Christmas vacation until the snow melted we were on the hill, we even made up games like toboggan fights. Split up in teams and 50 feet down the hill you did everything to stop the other teams from making it to the bottom, the last 150 feet were fun. We would stay out until we could barely feel our fingers, go home eat dinner and then back to the hill.

Tomorrows storm should OK, only 1-3 inches predicted which mean 5-8 inches on the ground, but my old man is making chili, so it all works out. Stay home, shovel snow, then have hot chili and a cold beer. That's what winter is all about.

Do kids even go sledding today?
 
January 2016 30.2 inches. it melted quick though and I was out hunting about a week later!
 
I was 11 in 78, and remember my dad rode in a "Load" (what we called it) which was a van full of workers working a John Deere in Dubuque IA, the Load made it back to our house, I had to forfeit my bed to a worker for a couple days, we had a houseful. Don't remember much else of it.
 
Winter of Dec 1968 to Jan 1969, north central Montana. Got down to 53 below zero and no warmer than 35 below for two weeks. Wind blew constantly with drifts as high as the house. We lived twenty miles from town but we still had to go to school! A lot of cattle died that winter..
 
Blizzard of '78.

Yeah...same here...pulling up the memories of that one! I was fresh out of HS, in Bowling Green OH...young man, 18yrs old, great shape, not scared of nothing, dressed for the occasion and out in it! That wind pulled all the air out of a guys lungs...put the fear and respect for Blizzards into a fellow...No surviving this unprepared!

I remember one other scary time in Northern MN in the early 80's...trying to get home from running my beaver traps up by Fosston, driving my Plymouth Volare slant 6 wagon when a flat out whiteout howling subZ blizzard hit us...Like an Arctic Mike Tyson! Merciless, Hard, fast, and continuously!.....Thats the bummer about having a trapline, you gotta go no matter what, in this light, not at all like detecting....Anyway, Had my young Daughter along, She was maybe 3yrs old?....She went with me everywhere, on the trapline, I towed her along behind me in a little plastic sled...We got completely stuck in a drift a few miles from the house...

Now, they say, in a situation like this, 'stay in your vehicle'...but this is way out on the backroad puckerbrush, not likely to be discovered until May, and then by a bear most likely, no OnStar or Cellphones back then...Not a house or Human for miles, and the Wife was at home all alone and worried out of her mind I'm sure.......Even though a guy couldnt see much, I knew where I was..I tucked my little daughter down into the front of my Carhartts like a kangaroo, zipped her in, and off we went...followed the fence, and we made it home...but damn..the Wife had gone completely insane! Had burned up half the furniture and even pulled the molding off the doors and baseboards to keep the fire going!....We moved the hell out of there in the Spring...True...and amazingly, I'm still married to the same Woman...:laughing:

Heres 'Before and After' pics of my Michigan snowshovels...I got four total, plus an aluminum grain scoop...The Blue one once looked like the Gray one, back in December...Yes, up here we do shovel the snow off the roof...Who can hunt in THIS Kind of Weather?:laughing: The Daughter is a grown Woman now, holds no hard feelings, and can skin a raccoon, so I guess I was a pretty good Father afterall?
 

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Even now a days Big Weather is humbling to me...Even with Nat Gas heat, back up generator, two wood burners, food in the fridge, beer in the garage, carton of smokes, all bases covered, cars topped off, cash on hand, preps, squirrels baited into the feeder..a guy feels very weak and small.

A Big storm rolls in, several days of howling cold/rain/sleet and ...a guy thinks to himself..."Nothing but some drywall, 6" studs, some siding, a roof overhead, separate me from a miserable death....even properly dressed and with a Bic Lighter, all my skills, I couldnt get a fire lit in this mess with a gallon of gas for a million dollars!...I'd be a dead man trying to survive out in the woods in this, without a CC, Cellphone, Uber on speed dial, and a Holiday Inn nearby!"...:laughing: Humans are very fragile creatures, some more than most, its a wonder we made it this far and did what we did!...Nakid and Afraid most of the time!..Every day we survive here on this inhospitable Planet is a Gimmee.:laughing:
 

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The weather channel just upgraded my area to a winter storm warning. I don't know what that means, maybe it might snow?

The storm in 1978 dumped about 22 inches of snow here, my father gave me the best advise ever "It's easier to shovel 3 inches of snow 8 times than to shovel 24 inches once".

Now I give myself incentives, when I go out I put a beer every 50 feet, clear the snow have a beer. It's also a science experiment, if alcohol lowers your body temperature, will I feel warmer when I'm done?:lol: Just kidding I wear a jump suit that keeps me warm to below zero temps. But the beer is a good incentive.
 
I don't remember the year but it was probably around 1970 or 1971. The roads were all drifted closed and nothing was moving. We needed to go to the store so my father and I took our tractor into town. We were the only ones on the road. On the way back we cut across a field where the snow wasn't as deep because of the blowing winds and accidentally drove off into a creek bed because everything was level with the snow. We missed the crossing by about ten feet. We had to get another of our tractors to pull the first one out.
 
I grew up in Indianapolis, IN. But I was lucky enough to be overseas as a guest of Uncle Sam when the storm of '78 hit. My mom sent me pictures from the paper. My dad told me the police were getting 4 wheel drive vehicles from private citizens just to be able to patrol the city. Sure was/am glad I missed that one.
 
I grew up in Peoria, Illinois. And the winter of
78-79 was the worst I have experienced. We went to bed and the grass was green. When we woke the next morning, our 4’ chainlink fence was gone. After the week of snow, one whole end of our house was buried in drifted snow.


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The blizzard of '78 was the worst I can remember. We were eventually plowed out by a neighbor using a bulldozer. New England was pretty much shut down for a few days.
 
Anyone in the midwest that's old enough will say the winter of '78-'79. I remember walking to the driveway (to go to school) in snow high enough to qualify for a WWI-era trench. If by some miracle we got out of town, the drifting near some roads topped many, many feet above most cars.

A few years back we got 22" of snow the night before (talk about irony)....Groundhog Day. I work crazy early at the TV station and the county plows here dial operations way back overnight so my normal 10-minute commute took over an hour and since the last stretch of road was closed, i still had to walk the last two miles in all that snow (and past a plow that was in the ditch) just to get to work so we could tell people to stay home if possible.

I was stuck at work for about 40 hours straight with only a few naps here and there. I worked less on 9/11. At least my car, abandoned at a gas station with a note, was still there when I went back to get it.
 
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