Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Anniversary of the '78 Blizzard

The great Blizzard of 1978 occured on January 25th through 27th... 33 years ago. This storm impacted much of the Midwest and Northeast with heavy snow and exceptionally strong winds. It all began when two areas of low pressure began developing on January 24th -- one over southern Canada with the polar jetstream, another over eastern Texas with the subtropical jetstream. These two jetstreams phased -- or came together -- the next day over the southern US and moved northward over the next two days with winds as high as 70 mph in parts of Ohio and snowfall totals of up to 60" in some areas. Chicago, in fact, measured 58 to 60 inches of lake-enhanced snowfall over the three day period. (I was unable to come across any specific snowfall totals for Rockford, but our evening news anchor, Mimi Murphy, was a teenager when the storm hit and remembers a snow drift covering a 6'-high glass door outside of her home.)

The storm caused over a billion dollars in damage, and is blamed for 76 deaths (50 of these occured in Ohio). Roadways in Boston and Providence were shut-down for a week. The storm set a non-tropical, low-pressure record for the lower-48 states at 28.28". This record, however, was broken on October 26, 2010 when the barometer at Bigfork, MN dropped to 28.20".

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