I DO remember that my dear friend Don Kent was NOT as enthusiastic about the blizzard on that Monday morning as I was. I believe Don was saying something like "there is STILL no indication that" we are going to have a blockbuster storm, though he DID change his mind by midday, as a WALL of heavy snow began moving northward from the NYC area. My recollection is that the storm was VERY WELL forecast. And while NO ONE could have sanely predicted the ultimate magnitude of the snowfall, the snowfall estimates were at the EXTREME end of the range that had EVER been predicted for ANY storm.
The first inklings of the impending MAJOR storm development came as early as Thursday of the week prior to the blizzard. The long range progs (in those days the max. was 48 to 72 hours) were suggesting a strong short wave would be digging southeastward through the Great Lakes toward the east coast into a very favorable temperature environment, and we began to hint at a MAJOR snowstorm for early the following week. As each run of the progs over the weekend confirmed our earlier thinking, Mark Rosenthal, who was working my radio stations for me called me at home to say he was going to go for ONE TO 2 FEET OF SNOW! I told him that was outrageous, but I
agreed to come in to the office to look at the progs myself. When I saw the progs, I had to agree there was little reason NOT to make such an "outrageous" forecast, except for the fact that to the best of my knowledge, it had NEVER been done before, certainly not BEFORE a snowstorm had actually commenced.
I came in that Monday morning, about 10 hours before the storm began in the Boston area, and this is what I forecast on the "Eyeopener": a storm of "historic" proportions; I pointed out that the benign cloudy sky of the early morning would give way to HEAVY snow in the afternoon, and suggested that if folks felt COMPELLED to go to work as usual, that they could expect to deal with serious driving problems on the way home; I stuck with the 1 to 2 feet of snow forecast that Mark had issued Sunday, and forecast winds of near hurricane force would cause massive drifts; along the coast, taking note of the new moon" tides which were going to be about 12' under the best of circumstances, I forecast RECORD high tides along the coast, and predicted that this would turn out to be the most serious threat to life and property. John Coleman, who was the forecaster on "Good Morning America" (or whatever the ABC Network morning program was called in those days) called me in the office about 7 am, and asked me what I was forecasting for Boston. I gave him all the
gave him all the above information, and suggested he emphasize the special flooding dangers along the coast.
Not only did he upgrade his forecast almost completely along the lines I suggested, but he credited me personally on nationwide TV (which I found very flattering). Well, we all know the results, folks who did NOT heed the early warnings had a horrendous time getting back home. By the time I was able to leave Ch. 5 about 2 PM, the "wall" of snow had arrived, and because I chose to take a short detour for some food on the way home, I wound up taking almost an hour to drive to my home only a mile away! During the evening commute, a truck skidding accident on the southbound side of Rte. 128 near route 138 in Milton started the progressive backup in traffic which eventually resulted in the most monumental marooning of people in automobiles in the history of Massachusetts. And you probably remember the TV images of the heroic rescues of people wading up to their armpits in freezing slush-filled salt water along the shore fromRevere to Hull. A record high tide indeed. Hurricane force winds indeed. One to 2 feet of snow forecast...on the average, an amazing forecast in my opinion. To be sure, many places had MORE than 2 feet; we had about 34" in Needham.
