The snow in the Blizzard of 78, as I remember it, was much heavier/wetter than we're going to see in this one. I know you know that. Big difference between cleaning up 30" of heavy wet snow and 30" of powder.
I bought that grill off my brother in 2005. I rebuilt it with all new parts from the Char-Broil website, used it for 6 years and gave it back to my brother. LOL The thing is at least 12 years old.I use charcoal for the most part now.