Blizzard of 1983

[groundcover]

February 11 and 12 1983 a two day blizzard began in the eastern United States. It snowed so hard in Allentown PA and Hartford CT that five inches accumulated in JUST ONE HOUR . From the Old Farmers Almanac calendar.
I was in PA at the time and it was a good dump, even got some thunder snow. Took me all day to open a mile or two of state road with a three yard articulated loader.

 

[ovrszd]

And no pics.

 

[MossRoad]

Some pics here...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...e05ae32-73a9-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_blog.html

 

[dalola]

Must have been mostly east of Ohio, I don't remember it. I do remember the blizzard of 1978 however, in Ohio. Don't know how far east that one went, but it was a doozie. I was 14 at the time, so I remember it well. Don't care to ever experience that again! Those interested can google it and prolly get thousands of pix.

 

[MossRoad]

Must have been mostly east of Ohio, I don't remember it. I do remember the blizzard of 1978 however, in Ohio. Don't know how far east that one went, but it was a doozie. I was 14 at the time, so I remember it well. Don't care to ever experience that again! Those interested can google it and prolly get thousands of pix.

I was 17. We had 36" of snow in 3 days. What was the most striking thing to me was that no matter where you went in open fields, woods, housing developments, 2, 3, 4 towns over, up to Michigan, over to Ohio, Illinois, no matter where you went, there was snow up to your waste. Drifts covered houses. My friends and I took turns sitting down on street signs! :laughing: It took them 3 days to open the main snow routes, and 7-8 days to get to residential streets. Then, it was just 1 pass down the street with a front end loader to open it up for fire trucks or ambulances. Took a couple weeks to open things up to 2 lanes. I remember my dad using a ladder to get up onto the roof to shovel it off, then just stepping off the roof and onto a drift to get down. Deer were walking in the shoveled paths because they aren't stupid. It was way past their bellies.

Anyhow, good memories. I'd like to see that again in my lifetime just so my kids could understand what it's like.

Great Blizzard of 1978 - Wikipedia

 

[ovrszd]

We had a similar situation as Moss described in 1960. After all the snow and drifting we got .1" of rain. Had to chisel trenches along the barnlot fences to keep the hogs from walking over them on the drifts. No school for two weeks. Only time in my life I've saw snow blowers used by the State.

Our farm building site is on a hill. Brother and I made a sled from a piece of galvanized ribbed tin. Could ride it 3/4 mile in one ride. Took an hour to get back to the house.

Had a 1954 Chevy car hood. Decided that was the way to go. My Brother, two cousins and I climbed aboard and pushed off. You ever see the Griswold's Christmas Movie. Yeah,,,,, I'm pretty sure we broke the sound barrier. At Mach I we jumped off a steep bank and slammed into the opposing bank of a ditch. Split the car hood in half. There was some bleeding. No broken bones.

 

[MossRoad]

In the storm in '78 they used the airport's blowers on the highways around here, too. There was a tragic incident at the airport as well. They were using a front end loader to dig out the airport parking lots, and there was a worker on the ground with a probe, probing for cars under the snow. The front end loader ran over him and killed him. Very sad.

I remember many people couldn't find their cars in their own driveways. As my friends and I were taking those turns sitting on one of the street signs, we saw a dad and his kid shoveling snow. They'd climbed out of their garage and up, over a drift. The dad was shoveling "over there" and the kid was shoveling "over there" and all of a sudden we here wham, wham, wham and look over and the kid was jamming a metal shovel straight up and down into the snow and yelling "Dad! I found the car!" :laughing:

Dad was yelling at him to stop and he just kept hitting it. We could only imagine what it did to the paint.

 

[5030]

We had 8 foot drifts from that one and I decided to buy a big double auger blower that I haven't used since. Just sits in the barn now. Probably never happen again.

 

[MossRoad]

I knew a farmer that adapted a large blower onto an old combine. It worked pretty darn well. He was up high enough to see everything with the blower being out-front where it should be.

 

[5030]

I knew a farmer that adapted a large blower onto an old combine. It worked pretty darn well. He was up high enough to see everything with the blower being out-front where it should be.

Bought a retired 10 foot county plow 2 years ago, Figured I might get to use that instead of the blower. I've used it 2 times in 2 years. If we actually had a whopper snow, I'd be a tank with the 10 foot blade on the front and the 80" double auger on the back... Wishful thinking I think,

Pretty soon we will have palm trees in Indiana and peanuts growing in Michigan. Screwy weather.