Tag: snow

Thirty years ago we got really plastered!

By snow, that is—and how well I remember!

The monstrous blizzard came to be called the Storm of the Century.

At my eastern Pennsylvania home, it was a unique opportunity for my young kids to experience a real blizzard! And they still remember how I made them go out with me in the storm to feel the cold and the wind and the ice sting our faces. And to develop character! I wanted to teach them what my older sister had taught me when we were kids: how to dig a hidey-hole for your head in a large snow drift, so that when the wind blew and the ice stung your cheeks, you could shelter in place. My sons were up for the brutal wind and cold; my daughter, not so much!

By definition, a blizzard consists of three simultaneous conditions: significant snow accumulation of .31 inch or greater per hour; sustained winds of at least 35 mph; and temperatures of 20F or less. A severe blizzard is when winds mount to a steady 45 mph or greater, visibility drops to near zero, and the temperature hovers at just 10F or lower. The consequences of such a storm produces fatalities. They include wind chill temperatures of -30F and lower; wind damage; burying snow drifts; hardship for wildlife; disruption of commerce and traffic; accidents and collapsing structures; interruption of energy distribution, communications and basic utilities; structure fires from constant heating; and shortages of food, medicine, shelter, and other vital provisions.

Here’s how I described the Blizzard to Remember in my book Discover Nature in the Weather (2001, Stackpole Books):

The blizzard of March 12-15, 1993 produced snow at least one foot deep from the Appalachian Mountains east to the Atlantic Ocean, in a continuous swath from Alabama to Nova Scotia. In some locations, several feet of snow fell in its passage, marked with killer tornadoes, straight-line wind gusts over 100 mph, record-low sea level pressures, and record cold temperatures. This memorable blizzard resulted in 270 fatalities and property damage estimated at nearly $1.6 billion.

The Blizzard of the Century’s aftermath in my backyard: my sons and their extra tall snowman; my book Discover Nature in the Weather.

Why, back in MY day..!

another heartwarming episode of “Life as I Remember it Ought to Have Been”

Today is another day of cancelled school while the populace waits for its hopeful interrupting snowfall. In anticipation, the streets have already been sprayed with snow-melting solution, the public works guys are counting overtime hours, and it’s a great excuse for a surprise holiday.

Remote workers: you got nothing.

But back in MY day, an accumulating snow, much less a forecast of it, was no reason for changing the day’s plans.

(Disclaimer: my bachelor’s degree is in forecast meteorology; and this is no bash against my brother and sister prognosticators!)

But as I was saying, back in MY day, things were different.

I have a vivid memory from a particular wintry day back in the early 60s, when Good Ol’ Bus 4 ambled up our unnamed road to our farm in rural Moore Township, Pennsylvania. Cold. Windy. Snow covering the yard, feeding troughs, fields, road and everything. Me, bundled in my red coat with the hood up and tied tight round my face with a threaded shoestring, wearing tall, black rubber boots, each with a half-dozen railroad-track latches, and clutching my metal Donald Duck lunchbox with matching thermos inside, I stood dutifully next to our mailbox held aloft by a red, white and blue painted plank figure of Uncle Sam.

The bus arrived just as expected, I giant-stepped into the maw of the yellow beast, and it trundled its load of captive minors toward another day’s sentence in jail (which today might be called “The Learning Facility.”)

But in just another two hundred feet or so, the bus lodged itself in a blustering snowdrift that had dammed the roadway between our barns. “Schlegel,” the bus driver, gave it the old college try to plow his way through, but today the game appeared to be already decided with the low score of Stubborn Snowdrift: 1, Good Ol’ Bus 4: 0.

I quickly and opportunistically offered to hop off and go back to the house and tell my parents. But Schlegel wouldn’t have it. With an order to his charges to “Stay on the bus!” he abandoned us to trudge back to the house. Inside, my parents allowed him to use the party-line telephone to call the school (what were they thinking!?) and let them know we were stuck in the snowbank between a pair of barns isolated in the backcountry wintry wastes.

Eventually, Schlegel returned and resumed his seat at the front of the bus, and closed the bifold door. And there we all sat in the damp cold on the hard bench seats. And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, in the distance, appeared an growing yellow smudge amid the swirling snow: Rescue!

Another bus crawled toward us from the other side of the world, turned itself around, backed up to “Our Drift,” and invitingly opened its door to the frigid wilderness.

With Schlegel stomping a path through the monstrous frozen whitecap, each of us snow-hopped across to Mean Ol’ Bus 6, retook our seats, and resumed the long, cold trek to No Excuses Consolidated Elementary School.

I couldn’t possibly tell you what I learned that day in class, but the memory of that singular adventure is a permanent fixture of what happened back in MY day!

Note: I sure wish that my dad had hustled outside with his Argus and taken a Kodachrome of that stuck school bus, but he stayed inside while all us kiddos built character. Instead, I offer these photos from another winter’s day when the Township’s bulldozer eventually got us plowed out—after we had run out of food, and my dad had skied into town to fetch some groceries.

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