On the morning of February 6, 1978 my nine-year-old self awoke to a weather forecast of a weak low pressure system with some light snow accumulation. Light my ass! Thirty-two hours and five feet of snow later it finally ended.
Ok, maybe that was a stretch. It was more like twenty-seven inches in my town but it really lasted for two days. I also know that we had to walk everywhere for like a week after which was a complete pain in the ass.
Plus, the whole thing started up on a Monday which meant most people’s spare cash was spent from the weekend. But the damn banks were closed and there weren’t ATM’s. A few people had credit cards but the corner grocery store didn’t take them. Hell most had never even seen one.
“Mastercharge? What the hell kind of bank is that? How do you keep the money in a piece of plastic?”
Those insolent non-future-seeing fools!
There was no cable television yet. There was just ABC, NBC, and CBS and they all went off the air at like midnight. Video cassettes? Only rich people had those. Gaming consoles were non-existent. All you could do was read or play board games. Scrabble and Monopoly got old quickly.
That is of course if you had electricity.
One storm turned 1978 New England into the 1878 version. That also got stale fast. Turning the clock back on technology and progress sucks, even if it just for a week or two. But it did create a lot of November babies, I’ll give it that. And it sure beat being stuck on the roads.
Much like the Patriots in the Super Bowl, New England was caught with its collective pants down. That was pretty embarrassing being that we are supposed to be used to this stuff.
Of course we are supposed to be prepared for the moon being really close to the Earth, 2-4 feet of snow, and seventy-mile-an-hour winds. We should be ready for a Canadian high pressure system that stalls, trapping the storm over New England for two days.
We aren’t Nanook of the North for crying out loud. But that storm did scare us. It would be the last time there was a ‘no worries’ policy towards snowstorms in New England.
The big winners from the Blizzard of ’78 were of course the dairy and grain producers and distributors. Ever since that storm, the minute there is any kind of a forecast of snow, everyone goes on a ‘bread and milk’ run.
What a sucky week it was thirty years ago.
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by Lord Likely, on February 6 2008 @ 6:49 pm
It certainly seems like that blizzard was ’snow’ joke, eh?
Oh my word. What…what have I done?!
I’m sorry. That was simply awful. I shall go and beat myself senseless.
by ChrisC, on February 6 2008 @ 10:30 pm
hehe yah that was bad
We were talking about this at work today and I forgot that at one point the dairy companies were dropping cases of white and chocolate milk by helicopter for people. I also got confirmation that most schools in the area were closed for a good two weeks. Felt like a month hehe.
by Theresa, on February 7 2008 @ 5:50 am
I grew up in Southern California and at the age of 9 I had never even seen snow, so I probably would have loved it. Okay, the no electricity and not being able to buy food would suck, but the sledding must have been great.
by diesel, on February 7 2008 @ 11:13 am
I was living in Michigan at the time. I remember climbing onto our roof from the snow banks.
by ChrisC, on February 7 2008 @ 12:19 pm
@Theresa: yah if you could get out of your house hehe.
@Diesel: I kept coming across that midwest storm while researching this one. Thanks for sending it our way to merge with another low pressure system to create the Blizzard.
Another fact that sucked about this storm: New England had just gotten another 20 inch blizzard two weeks before. We thought THAT was the big one.
by Jeff, on February 8 2008 @ 9:24 pm
I actually miss those old huge snowstorms. I’m wondering if those days are over now because of wobal glarming.
Jeff’s last blog post..But it will be worth it
by Lisa, on February 11 2008 @ 10:36 pm
Ha, nice closing. That just reminded me of Y2K and all the batteries we bought. Oh dear.
Lisa’s last blog post..On being maybe slightly antisocial