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Cleveland obs from the Blizzard of 78


Hoosier

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dang! and i thought last winter's blizzard was nuts...well it was but gusting to 82mph in snow in just stupid.

I hope I'm alive to experience an event like that. Widespread 60-70 mph gusts over land and an unofficial gust of 111 mph on Lake Erie.

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I hope I'm alive to experience an event like that. Widespread 60-70 mph gusts over land and an unofficial gust of 111 mph on Lake Erie.

Well, there's always next Winter :popcorn:

I was very young at time of this storm so I really have no memories except for a few old pictures my parents took. I'll see if I can dig them up and post them.

There was a decent snowpack on the ground prior to the storm.... the blowing and drifting probably would have been much worse had the temp not rose to 44 before crashing.

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This storm was pretty legendary for our area (southwestern Ontario, bordering Lake Erie.) I remember being told as a kid by my mom that this storm caused snow drifts to nearly bury her house and garage. She told me the drifts were so deep that she could jump off of her roof and land without getting hurt. My grandmother was trapped in her house for days because of the massive drifts, living out in the country.

My entire life, I've wanted to experience a winter storm like this. The February blizzard came close (winds gusting to 65 mph) but the disappointment from being in the dry slot overshadowed the wind event.

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Just youtube cleveland blizzard 1978 and you'll find a ton of local news live video shots from the storm.

The SW winds really are noteworthy. Had that storm passed a little more to the east and allowed for a westerly or slightly north of westerly wind, it would have been uber epic. Lake Erie would have been the equivalent of a hurricane making landfall with snow and ice surges. I would presume the November 1950 bomb would have produced an almost epic wind flow off the lake too.

Seeing these obs and comparing them to say PHL, ACY or NYC, from Irene really puts into perspective the power of that storm.

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Nothing like that SW wind with a temp of 7, how about that drop to start the blizzard 37 to 18 in an hour? Talk about some flash freezing.

That is what jumped out at me. Cant imagine temps like that with those winds. Had to be just beyond brutal out. Ofcourse i would still love to step out into something like that.lol Out this way the peak wind gust was 48.3 mph. The temps did not fall like they did out that way either. Still a solid 2 feet of snow fell ( 24.5" i believe was the storm total for here ) which when you consider the wind it makes last years blizzard look weak around here anyways. The best comparison here to Jan 78 would be Jan 67 as far as snowfall totals and winds go. Hopefully we see another one of these events ( similar results in my backyard as 67/78 ) before i get too old.

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I have a LOT of memories from the blizzard as I was a high school sophomore at the time and living about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland in Lake County. It was as awe-inspiring as you might think. With the winds there was a persistant roar outside that simply did not abate. And yeah, I remember within a span of 15 minutes how the weather went from heavy rain and high winds to snow and high winds.

Walking outside was impossible between the winds and the wind-blown snow crystals which felt like needles slamming into your skin.

Other than a tornado outbreak here in Austin in 1997 ... the Blizzard of 78 in Cleveland was the most extreme weather event I've seen in my 49 years on this planet!

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