After living in northern Minnesota for 30 years, I can say without a doubt I would rather have a blizzard with -40F+ windchills over an ice storm any day!
We had an ice storm here in Huntsville once, it started out as snow and then turned into sleet. After the power got knocked out it was silent, except for the sound of big tree limbs breaking which made it sound like random gunfire. We actually ran out of firewood which was no fun.
Mean while in Portland, we're just getting over one that started on Friday. People think we're just bad at dealing with winter storms but no it's always just ice storms.
And when it's time to stop fucking around & bring out the real winter coat - the man's fluffy winter coat! I hate how most women's winter coats are noisy, thin garbage anymore...
I just moved to the Midwest after having lived my whole life in the desert and I gotta say... nothing could have prepared me for this and I'm not leaving my house until spring
Welcome to the Midwest. The winters vary from "why... Just why?" to "bloody awful" to "eh, it sucks but at least we aren't in Minnesota." Just one of the charms of living in the region.
@@philhamilton8731 My niece and her family live in Minnesota. I visited Christmas a few years ago. It’s always been my belief as a Chicagoan I could handle any cold weather. Minnesota winter is next level cold.
I remember getting stranded in a small Colorado town about 20 years ago during a blizzard. All the roads closed, and all of the hotels got filled. The town had to open up the community center gymnasium and take in traveling refugees until the roads opened up again.We were there for about 24 hours, and they fed us and set up mass sleeping arrangements on the floor with mats and blankets. It was actually pretty well organized and a bit of an adventure, and everyone got along really well. But it was a powerful reminder that Mother Nature is still the boss :)
The mountain towns in this state are used to that sort of thing, yeah, and they have plans in place that benefit from more than a century of experience, in some cases. 😀
People probably got along because deep down you all knew that if you started a fight, your ass was going outside in the cold and saying a permanent good night.
It’s such a cloudy day Seems we’ll never see the sun Or feel the day has possibilities Frozen in the moment - the lack of imagination Between how it is and how it ought to be -- from _How It Is_ by Rush Well, okay, Neil was speaking figuratively, but it fits.
Welcome to the Great Lakes region, Lawrence. Always carry a huge survival kit in your car ----- food, water, flares, camp stove with fuel and matches, and most importantly ----- space blankets and a feed shovel. Feed shovels make the BEST snow shovels in the world. Voice of experience? You betcha. I had stage 2 hypothermia in an epic blizzard in my childhood, then again the next year in another one, then again three years after in *another* one. (Laura Ingalls Wilder and I shared a lot in common in winter.) Also, these days, those crakc-packs for heat. Oh, and flashlight and batteries to spare. It's a pain lugging the tub in and out, but y'know, it saved lives for people many a time.
You're absolutely right. A good feed shovel beats any other thing you own for moving snow by hand. No sense dying on the road if you know it's gonna get bad.
You can also do canned goods (canned fruit, canned vegetables, SPAM, baked beans). All you need is a can opener and something to eat the food with. Or you can make some Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches or have the items for something like that.
If you're in one of the bands of lake effect snow it's one of the snowiest places on the entire planet. You're getting 10+ feet of snow every year. Guaranteed. I don't even know why they let people live there. I'd consider that land uninhabitable. Once it snowed 11-3/4 feet in 10 days there. Might as well just call it an even dozen. If by the grace of God I got out of that I'd burn my house down and move to the tropics.
@@TheBullyMomma I guess you can usually dig your way out of snow. I'm not a fan of digging my way out of snow though. I've been in a few hurricanes and one earthquake. I'd say that all beats shoveling snow. But the events I've experienced were not strong hurricanes or a powerful earthquake.
@@1pcfredi live in coastal texas. For the most part living in a subtropical area is great, but i have survived too many hurricanes to want to stay here much longer. I plan to move to central texas where it is safer from storms and surges but still free from heavy snow. (It doesn't snow at all where i live, have only seen snow once in my life)
This morning I was out with my dogs and the temp was 24. It felt absolutely balmy compared to the past week, so I sat in a lawn chair for half an hour and enjoyed it.
I went for a a four wheeler ride yesterday in 40 degree weather in my nightgown and crochet cloak and felt so cozy and nice. Sliding on the ice but it sure did feel balmy.
Down in the south it got pretty bad, not as bad as the north but for awhile there with the added wind chill we were at -11F which for the rest of the world was around -24c. Can't say I'm a fan of these Polar Vortexes but at least the electrical grid didn't collapse this time, so "positivity"?
There was a winter storm here in Nebraska in 1888, called the Childrens Blizzard. 213 children died when the blizzard came up without warning (very common here in the Great Plains) and the teachers sent the children home, as the heat in schools was lets say inadequate. They froze to death when it became a white-out and their parents had no way of knowing they didn't stay at school, so didn't set out to fetch them. It's been below zero for days, snow and ice. But things could be worse, so I tell myself.
And one intrepid schoolteacher led her students through the whiteout conditions to a nearby farm that was better equipped to take care of her and her 13 students. This was commemorated in a mural installed in the Nebraska State Capitol in 1967.
The "blizzard" in Chicago wasn't the problem this past week, it was the temperatures! I honestly laughed at how little snow we got compared to how much was in the forecast, but my heater was struggling to keep the temperature livable for a couple days there.
Hey Lawrence. I am a Chicago native and have a great blizzard story. It was April fools day and I was downtown getting a haircut in the 1970s. Snow was predicted but it was a lake effect storm . I got out of the haircut and there were 6" on my 1965 Bug. I got on Lake Shore Drive and there was a traffic jam. We all got stuck there, and it got so bad that drifts began covering the stranded cars. I was stuck for 12 hours there. Another driver got in my car and we picked out way through the abandoned cars and exited on an entrance ramp. Got home at 3am. It was the only time my VW ran well. It took a week to tow all the cars off the Drive. Craziest thing I have lived through!!
Year's ago when Atlanta got shut down people were towing cars that weren't theirs. So many car's were stolen. In the south we measure snow in flakes typically 😂 I do have to say the silence is never more beautiful than when it's snowing.
What transforms a snow storm into a blizzard is the wind. If it blows strong enough, you will have white out conditions which means you simply cannot see. People have died by freezing to death very close to safety because they could not see how to get there. Growing up in New York I have been through so many snow storms and blizzards that I literally forgot most of them. I now live in a tropical paradise known as the Philippines where snow is not a thing
On the North Dakota farm where my mother grew up, they tied a rope from the house to the barn before the blizzard hit so that people could find their way back and forth and wouldn't die just feet away from shelter when it whited out. And yes, they *had* to get to the barn because they had to milk the cows. At 4 AM it was brutal.
Grew up in Chicago and now live in Indiana... I feel your pain Laurence! A few years back we had something far worse than a blizzard... an ice storm. Ice covered so many trees and took out power lines everywhere! Can't walk, can't drive, and the power is out, so no heat. Surprisingly, my block was one of the few that never lost power from that.
Ice storms really are the worst. If they're not too destructive, the ice covered trees are kind of pretty, but slipping and sliding everywhere is awful.
Everyone needs to get a kerosene heater, stockpile kerosene, and push back when the government tries to ban, restrict, or tax kerosene. A kerosene heater isn't just a heat source but you can also put a pot or pan on top of it to cook. I've even managed to cook shrimp, steak, and ground beef for sloppy joe on a kerosene heater last time the power went out.
Happened to me last year here in Michigan. Back to back ice storms, and nearly a million people without power across the state. Luckily my power was only off for just over a day, but there were people on my road that were without power for over a week. I spent around 15k to get a whole home standby generator installed because of that event, and the fact that since moving to the midwest from the west coast, I've lost power more in 3 years than in my entire life before moving. About a month after install, we had a series of tornadoes knock out power for nearly a week, but with the generator I was able to just live normally. AC on, clothes washing, wifi, the whole kit and kaboodle. WELL worth the investment.
I went to work that night and didn’t get home for 3 or 4 days. Going home snow piled to 8 or 10 feet on either side. Was like driving through a tunnel but open top. Lol
My parents always used to talk about that storm. They took their snowmobiles and delivered groceries to people. My dad always recounted how he put his foot down to steady his snowmobile and his foot slipped on metal and he realized there was a car underneath him.
The Long Winter is one of my favourites of the little house books. It’s been in the -30-40C here in Edmonton Alberta. We were spoiled by such a mild December.
California resident: "I don't have to experience the arctic blast!" Also California resident: _endlessly in pain when the temperature drops near freezing, and by near freezing I mean below 50F_
I live in Indiana and I absolutely have to force myself to wear long pants once it gets below freezing. Some people just don't get cold. That being said, you'll never see me on the news without a shirt.
Haha! I remember the first winter I moved to California from Indiana, and the weather forecasters were telling people to 'bundle up against the cold' and they were interviewing people in parkas. My mother was visiting and we thought, "oh dear, better get the winter gear back out" We stepped outside and realized the 'cold' was actually around 52. Went back in, shed our Midwestern winter stuff and put on sweatshirts instead, laughing hysterically.
I remember pulling out of my driveway to go to university, stopping briefly to plug in my phone, and I just slid down until I was turned 90 degrees on the road. Uni is 45 minutes away on highways. I'm not risking my life for Calculus.
My blizzard memory was the Blizzard of 1978 in mid Michigan. I was 8 years old and got up the next morning to walk a mile to school, only to find out school was cancelled. Our whole town was pretty much buried for a week.
@@OCMike My mother was 18 at the time living in Mass, and she remembers that pretty much everything around here was down or inaccessible. Fire rescue were out bringing people food, water, and fuel. Being born in '91, I've had my share of bad blizzards up here in New England, but never anything that bad. I do remember a handful of years ago, getting hit by a nor'easter that dumped snow up to my hips, and I'm 6 feet tall. I walked to work and almost couldn't get through the snow, thought I was going to have a heart attack
My dad used to tell us about how he was delivering groceries to people with his snowmobile after that storm and he put his foot down to steady the snowmobile and found that there was a car underneath him.
As someone old enough to have worked the blizzard of 78 in the northern Ohio area. I can tell you that every storm after that seems mild. When snow drifts get high enough to bury a whole neighborhood, a foot of snow is minor.
@@CptJistuce our weather people can't forecast snow at all. They claim six to eight inches, I don't worry. When they say maybe a dusting, I'm getting the snow blower ready and waxing the shovel. Never fails.
@@peteengard9966Yeah, mine are like that in spring and fall. Maybe it's hot, maybe it's cold, maybe there's a thunderstorm coming through... we'll find out when we get there. If they claim 6-8 inches of snow here, I'm just "Where did you say you moved here from?" An inch of snow is about the worst we ever see(outside of the one time)
@@peteengard9966 Before the Chicago snowstorm of 67, they predicted light snow, but we had 50+ mph (85+ kph) winds that picked up moisture from the lake and dropped 23 inches (58 cm) of snow. Because of the winds there were 15 ft drifts (4.5 meters) of snow. We didn't have the snow removal equipment that we have today, so all the adults in the neighborhood grabbed their shovels and came out to clear the snow from the streets and sidewalks. We kids went out and helped for about 5 minutes, but we weren't strong enough to do much, so we just played in the snow. I kept jumping from my neighbor's porch into a 7' drift next to their house. After it was over, the YMCA two doors down from me hired someone to plow their parking lot, which resulted in a 15' pile of snow that covered the fence separating the parking lot and the alley with a peak 7' higher than the top of the fence. We played king of the hill on that thing for more than a week.
@histrion2, do you remember the Chicago city worker who purposely rammed his snow plow into dozens of cars in '78? He was so fried from working endless hours, he just cracked. Unintentionally, he killed a person in his wake.
Laurance, you need to experience an East Coast Nor'easter to really learn to hate winter. First it snows 10 inches then it backs up and snows another 10 inches before finally snowing another 10 inches. You'd think I'm exaggerating, but hopefully somebody from the East Coast will comment here and confirm just how much snow a good Nor'easter can drop over 48 hours. I grew up in the Upper Midwest and I was greatly impressed by the event.
One storm my neighbor put all the snow he collected with his plow into one giant pile, shit must have towered what seemed like 20 feet tall. I always liked the fresh snow-fall, but all that accumulated snowfall on the ground it becomes really annoying in the long-term when it starts getting any combination of icy, muddy slush, or rock solid. Very satisfying when warm weather comes to rid you of the leftovers.
Yes, as a Bostonian, I can confirm the Nor’easter. The most famous was the Blizzard of’78, when it snowed for three straight days. We were buried! It took weeks to be plowed out. No school for two weeks. It was awesome!
The blizzard of 1978 and 1996 in North East was brutal. Each time it snowed for 2 days. Never saw the ground until mid April. Then the ice storm of 1994....that sucked.
The most depressing Laura Ingalls Wilder book was The Long Winter. They woke with ice above them and spent all day twisting hay into logs to burn. They were without Pa who was working to free the trains and were almost out of food when supplies finally reached them.
I think the saddest part of that book was Pa realizing that his hands were too frozen and gnarled to play his fiddle. Even that little bit of comfort was denied them.
She originally called that book The Hard Winter, since that is what that year’s season was always called historically. However, her publisher thought it was too bleak a title so they made her change it.
There's also another phenomenon called "lake effect snow" which can really drop even more snow on you. My sister now winters in Florida, and she was laughing about the residents bundling up in heavy coats when the temperature dropped below 60 degrees. In the meantime, it's a balmy 10 degrees here in upstate NY.
Blizzards generally come from the northwest or west, so the lake effect snow during blizzards falls on Michigan and western New York state. If Chicago gets lake effect snow, there are rarely blizzard level winds, however, there can be heavy snow within 1 to 5 miles from the Lake Michigan, occasionally it will reach out about 10-15 miles.
I spent my first 12 years in Cleveland (northeast OH) and we would get lake effect snow. One winter when I was a baby but that I heard about, the snow got high enough to cover the doors and shut down the roads, etc. In our neighborhood, which was filled with families with very young kids, the Dads got together and arranged a convoy, trudging through the snow in a line, pulling their kids' little red wagons, to the nearest market a few miles away to buy milk and other necessities, then slogged back. I wasn't told, but I suspect that after they got home, one of their group hosted the others in drinking a few (or many) hot toddies. I just Googled it, and it was a 5-day snowstorm (The Thanksgiving Blizzard of 1950 - yes, I'm old). Here's the description: "Nearly the entire state was blanketed with 10 inches (25 cm) of snow, with 20-30 inches (51-76 centimetres) being measured in eastern sections of Ohio. The highest report was 44 inches (110 cm) from Steubenville. Snow drifts were up to 25 feet (7.6 m) deep."
I remember the Blizzard of "67 in Chicago. I have a photo of 6 y/o me in a snowsuit, wearing mittens, and a hat with a pom-pom on top. I was standing next to a pile of snow next to our house that was as high as the house.
My family was moving away that day. We and the moving van Barely made it down the highway before the roads closed up. I still remember the sight of snow falling as I got into the back seat. I was a sniffling little kid who didn’t want to leave my home.
I had a Zoom call with a McGill University professor and she told me about the trucks that hoover the snow from the streets and dump it outside the city. Makes me shutter just thinking about it. Love from Florida.
I can relate. As a resident of Los Angeles, CA in the winter of 1999 we had to endure rain that lasted somewhere from 15 to 30 minutes that one day it rained and temperatures that plummeted to 53 degrees. I'm lucky to have survived.
I live in southern Ontario, and I will say that the weather has definitely become more mild since I was younger. Nonetheless, all my British friends are always shocked by the cold and snow. I couldn't imagine how difficult it must be in some of the Northern Canadian provinces which received mountains worth of snow.
I am old and born in Chicago. I lived through the blizzard of January 25-26 of 1967 and January 13-14 of 1979. 23 inches fell in 1967 and 21 inches in 1979. It was so cold that the mountain of ice that was formed did not completely melt until May. So though these last few days have been harsh, it's nothing compared to those good old days. And think about it, no internet or video games to distract us. We were all out skating, snowball fighting and sledding outside even in the cold.
all those things where the distractions of that time, internet and video games keeps people safe as they are in doors and not in a possible danger area.
My first winter in the Midwest was '81/'82. I dropped out of school and went home to NorCal before Thanksgiving that same year. Nope! Mom may have been born in Chicago, but I didn't get any of those snow genes. Y'all are crazy to live there.
I was here too.. For fun we were using the garage roof as the top of our man made sledding hill. No school for at three days! Today's kids will never enjoy another snow day with the home e learning. So sad for them.
I grew up in Chicago and vividly remember the Blizzard of 1967. The snow was piled up sufficiently to the point some people could climb out their second floors and jump in snow banks.
Same here. We lived in suburb of Rochester, NY. I remember brother and I helping Dad shovel driveway. In free time, sledding at Harris Hill and also downhill portions of our driveway. Also, stand up sledding down the hill from our driveway. Mom offering up hot cocoa for helping Dad.
In 1978, we lived in suburban Chicago and had to dig tunnels so our dog could go pee outside. She (and her bladder) waited patiently for a few extra hours after breakfast for us to dig out just enough that she wouldn't sink into the snow and get lost. Mind you, we didn't dig out channels or pathways. We dug TUNNELS-- the snow stayed intact above our heads as we dug out a small area, about the size of a small bathroom or large closet. Our cars were indistinguishable from the many snow drifts in the deep, deep snow.
‘67 was harder than ‘78 because it hit mid day. It meant many were stuck on there way out of school and work. ‘78 lasted much longer and was followed by a long cold streak.
I remembered Blizzard of 1979 in northern Illinois. I was with my sister at our babysitter’s/neighbor’s home after school playing with her son and daughter. Our parents were running late to pickup us after school. We lived across the street from our neighbor’s home. We had dinner at her home. I remembered seeing snow right near the top step in front of her house. The next morning all of the schools are closed the following day. I remembered it was a sunny winter day with deep snow. I followed my mother in the deep snow. I was 8 years old and seeing all the kids in my neighborhood playing in the snow. My father had a lawnmower tractor with a snow plow attachment. It was easy for him. I remembered almost all of the snow melted in March. I remembered going uphill in the front yard touching the snow wearing a t-shirt sweatshirt and jeans. I have been in a few winters with lots of snow in northeastern Wisconsin,too. One winter there was a lot of snow that lasted till early May. Usually it ends in late March or early April. One year in 2012 in early March. It went from late winter towards a very early summer weather in the 70’s for the highs. I remembered it because in early March 2012 that I was in a bad car accident that I broke my left ankle from the impact from the other car that hit my little car. I wasn’t seriously injured from that accident. I even remembered 3 winters in a row that had over a foot of snow in February and March. That was 2007,2008, and 2009. Sometimes winters were very mild,too. Last year December and January were very mild w/o any snow almost. February was so cold for the entirely the whole month.
Gotta go with this. Back in 2003, we went to England to visit my in-laws. We actually rented a car (I panicked as my husband learned to drive in the States). It was snowing pretty good. The locals were driving like Mississippians in Chicago during the winter. My husband? Drove like he was a Wisconsin native.
I worked for GE in Schenectady right after graduating from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. They sent me on training in December of 1978 and January of 1979 to the gas turbine power plant under the skyway in Calumet City. What a miserable experience for a California boy to stand in the below zero Degree F outside for 8 hour shifts. A blizzard came through one night and dumped 24 inches of snow overnight. We spent a whole day poking suspect snow drifts with a pole to locate our diesel air compressor which wouldn't start anyway. The crew would work for 30 minutes then take a 2 hour warmup break. I had a snowmobile suit on all day with an extra hooded jacket on the outside. I don't like cold. It was terrible. People in Chicago freaked out. A city worker flipped out and ran cars over with his front end loader. Some guys spent the day digging their car out in front of their house when a snotty girl parked there and told them ''Its a public street.'' They shoveled the snow back onto her car, found a hose, and spayed water from the hot water tank onto it to turn it into a block of ice until May. Meanwhile, I discovered something called Black Ice. Step on the brakes and the car slides through the red light intersection just like the 12 others in front of you. No control at all. GE rescued me from Chicago and sent me to a refinery in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf for a few months to thaw out. Meanwhile in NorCal, its really cold outside right now. 48F..... It might rain Friday.
@@maralisil Yeah, like they designed and built the Vulcan 20mm cannon, GAU-8 30mm Warthog gun, and built casings and parts for nuclear weapons. My kind of place.
I'm completely and utterly a little bit thrilled to see a new vid from you! I've been binge watching "Lost in The Pond" for weeks now. I love Lawrence and Tarah!
Minnesotan here. My first driving experience, back when I turned 15 and got my driver's permit, my mom took me right onto the road, during a blizzard. She insisted I get on the highway too, and I couldn't see more than 40-50 feet in front of the car.
In my area we had an ice storm over the weekend which kept everyone who had the least amount of common sense at home. I slipped on some ice on my porch and the bruise still hurts. But I’d still take this over the oppressive heat of southern California any time. I loved your dog’s attitude toward the snow! Dealing with it is just a matter of preparation and attention. Keep a month or two worth of food in stock in case you get stuck at home, and shovel the snow along walkways and driveways when you can so they’ll clear up quicker when the weather gets nicer.
The oppressive heat of southern California? Apparently you've never lived in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, or Texas, not to mention the horribly humid South.
@@richardtibbitts3841I don't have ac living by the beach. Going to Arizona in the summer is amazing, I need a sweater to be inside any Comercial or residential building. So yeah 90 degrees for three months with barely an ocean breeze is more oppressive then desert areas pumping ac desperately. Oh an less humidity when not at the beach.
@@Earthling247- when i lived in San Diego i never really used my AC or Heating! Is is a temperate zone where summers rarely got hotter than 90’s (but we still had the ocean breeze that made it feel like low 80s) or winters cooler than mid 60s during the day! Even now, my home in Temecula rarely sees AC usage and my heater usage is typically for under 10 hours total for the winter!
I’m from Michigan and midwestern winters are actually super mild. In Montana it snows up to 500 inches per season and temps can stay as low as -40 Fahrenheit for weeks at a time. The winter also lasts from early October till early June.
When your eyes are very cold due to wind chill and a big snowflake hits your eyeball, it literally feels like glass cutting your eye, until a few seconds later when it melts. Memoirs of your paper delivery girl, because, yeah, your news was TOTALLY worth it...
Last year in Buffalo, we had two storms about 4-5 weeks apart that dumped 6 feet of snow each on different parts of the area. We've only had about half that this week. Still, it's a good thing I don't need to go anywhere, though.
Are you referring to the Christmas blizzard of '22? fortunately I had those days off from work and was at home. From what I've been told that blizzard was worse than the blizzard of '77, my mom was pregnant with me at the time.
@@Juggernath Having lived in the sunbelt my entire life, I cannot even imagine feeling that temperature just by going outside. My freezer only goes down to 0°C.
I remember driving from Sioux Falls SD to Minneapolis in a blizzard and the only way that we knew we were on the road, is the overturned semi trucks in the ditch.
In MN in Jan 1975 my parents got so much snow on their dairy farm than the cows were able to get onto the roof of a single story extension on the back of the barn. One fell off on the lee side (almost no snow) and broke a leg.
Around December 1978 there was a blizzard in New York and everything was slowed down and my mother was 7 months pregnant with me. She walked to her sister's house for Christmas. She said it was so much fun.
Great video, very entertaining! As someone living in Winnipeg Manitoba (Winterpeg, Manitscoldout) I have to appreciate the folks to the south who don't have to deal with the severe weather that we do. -9F is fairly mild winter temps to us. We can hit -40 or colder in the winter here.
Hello fellow winnipeger! I can definitely agree that Winnipeg is no stranger to cold, but I'm originally from southwest ontario and the snow and blizzards there are way worse than the snow we get here! Lake effect squalls and snow bands dropping feet of snow in a few hours, ice storms knocking out power for days and causing ice quakes a whole different winter! Although the last few years my family reports they've had very little snow 😢 dang climate change.
i went to winnipeg on vacation one summer. being a minnesotan i thought i knew all about cold weather. then i saw all the plug-ins outside the office buildings for cars.
@@davidkermes376 Huh??? I guarantee that people plug their cars in, in Minnesota. Because I have had to plug my vehicle in, in Minnesota, because of extreme low temperatures. Manitoba's record low is -63, Minnesota's is -60, ND's is -60, etc. We all get the same arctic air..
as a Minnesota resident I absolutely feel for you. Lived here my whole life but I hate it and can only imagine having to deal with winters after not growing up dealing with them. and I raise my visible glass to you good sir!
We got only a dusting of snow here in Portland. But the city is still immobilized because what we did get was ice. My car is currently covered by a 1/2" thick shell of ice. And though it warmed slightly over freezing this afternoon, all it did was make everything extra slippery. The shell of ice is still intact, and we're out of bread and milk. And I'm not going to risk my neck by walking out on it to get to the corner store. When the world is coated by ice, no one goes anywhere.
We have similar weather warnings here. So far, a bit of snow & that's all. Don't huddle in & embrace a bad mood. Embrace hot chocolate, cookies (biscuits), books, binge-watching good shows, movies, & (if you have the self-dicipline) projects you've been putting off...Doing cold weather right is an art. You just need more creativity! 😉
I live in CNY and remember the Blizzard of '93 well. I was in a quilting class and that week's class naturally was cancelled. When we got back, EVERYBODY had finished their quilt since there was nothing else to do but sew and shovel. And shoveling gets old REALLY fast. But I'll still take blizzards over earthquakes. At least with blizzards there's a warning that it's on the way, so people can prepare.
Me and my family got snowed in our house for at least THREE DAYS during the blizzard of '93 in upstate NY. We were also living on a very rural farm so help wasn't anywhere close if we had needed it. I was only 8 so I don't really remember much, but I do remember it looking like Antarctica outside and I think my mom said the power went out at some point. I also spent 16yrs in Alaska and saw some knarly blizzards
My son was 7. He'd heard me talk about the snow here in Central New York when I was a kid, how we'd get snowed in on the farm two or three times a winter for several days at a stretch. I don't think he really believed me until the Blizzard of '93. This year, though, I don't think we've gotten a foot total so far and it's melted several times. My snowdrops are blooming, the crocus are starting, and the grass is green...in February. Hope we don't have a drought this summer with no snowmelt!
@retriever19golden55 I remember the blizzard of '93. I grew up in Oswego, I was actually 7 that year, and we got snowed in for 3 days. The climate is getting scarier and sadder every year 🥺
My first blizzard I was 3 and my uncle was driving us home from Peshtigo to Milwaukee. From the northernmost hwy in the US to just 90 miles north of Chicago in a Ford panel truck with no back seats. My cousin and I were sitting on bundles of newspaper.
It's too cold to blizzard like that out here in Colorado. Temperatures just last week got low enough overnight that we got Diamond Dust instead of snow a couple of nights. Turns out -40 windchill does wonders for stopping any snow from accumulating.
It doesn’t have to be actively snowing to have a blizzard. Blizzard just means it’s blowing snow. I’ve seen high winds and white out blizzards with clear sunny skies.
@@GratefulEd907 Well yeah, I was just saying that it's often been too cold for it to be a 'dumps half a foot of snow in a few hours' blizzard. We had one windstorm a few weeks ago where before it started, we had a few inches of snow left from the previous snow, and after the blizzard, it had taken most of what was left and blown it away.
Actually, we had a blizzard with white out conditions Central Colorado in '90 that I remember super well. It was -32F before wind chill, couldn't see the neighbors 30 feet away and my Grandparents were visiting and staying in a motel a few miles away. I remember it extra well because it was my birthday and we were supposed to have school that day (first and only time ever on my birthday), and school was cancelled. Greatest birthday gift ever! We've had many many blizzards, just not often the huge dumpers that the midwest and northeast get. Might get a couple feet, but it's mainly the white out conditions and cold temps that really make it. Actually had one a few years ago as well that dumped about 2.5 feet that I had to go out in to drive to my parents to take care of some stuff in their house during the blizzard. It couldn't wait, and it couldn't have been done before it either unfortunately. Times like that I extra love my SUV. When everyone's saying stay home if you can, and I have to go out and have no problems driving in the nastiest conditions (carefully and responsibly of course).
You don't know what winter is like until you've worked on the railroad. After digging my car out of the snow so I could get to work, I still had to enduce working out in the storm at the rail yard in the dark of night.
We'll finally be able to walk outside without stepping onto an ice rink today. Maybe. Our 7th day after the ice started. Made it to the mailbox yesterday, carefully. First delivery since it started. I'm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Not supposed to do this here. Every few years we actually have winter. Found our how steep the slope in the back yard was when my poor dog slid all the way to the back fence on 4" of solid ice and I couldn't get down to him. (66 and disabled. I tried and had to give up.) He got himself thru the fence into the neighbor's flatter yard and I laid a blanket down to give me traction to get to the fence for her to toss him over to me. Then I went inside to cancel the rescue squad who I had called (non-emergency number) after I failed to get to him. I had fallen once but I was ok. Grateful for good neighbors who love my dachshund. It's an awful feeling not to be able to rescue my own dog from my own tiny backyard. I could have slid down to him but then we'd both need rescuing. I put him on a long lead after our adventure. Had to use it to tug him out of slippery spots a couple times. When a dog built like a tank can't even walk across the lawn you know it's bad!
I live with a sister who lived in Chicago for 50 yrs. She was outside a few yrs ago knocking icicles off the eaves. WTH? They'll be gone in half an hour. In Oregon we only do that over our entries so we don't get dripped on. She was looking for someone to come plow our driveway yesterday morning. I talked her out of it. It was slush by mid afternoon. And I own a Jeep Grand Cherokee, if we can get to it, it can get us anywhere, carefully. She tends to fret and she was fretting. If I hadn't gone to get the mail she would have. She's fallen and broken bones 4 times in the last five years. KLUTZ ALERT! I don't want to nurse her thru any more broken bones. She is NOT a pleasant patient.
One note: Officially in the USA a blizzard doesn't require significant snow fall, merely blowing snow can be enough. The snow aspect deals with Visibility, as Blizzards in the USA require significant wind speeds(35+mph) AND a visibility of jack shit for hours.
I've always felt there's something magical about weather that makes the out-doors instantly lethal. As a younger person I always felt like an intrepid space-man donning high-tech layers of protective garments to brave the harshness of OUTER SPACE. Now as a not-as-young person I just stay indoors.
This is so spot on. One thing I always love about those heavy snows, especially now, is the hushed quiet. No traffic or insects or birds or lawn equipment. Just these periods of soft quiet it feels so rare to experience day to day.
Lived through the blizzard on 1978 in Pittsburgh PA. It was epic. We had to dig ourselves out from the second story window and built an igloo in the back yard to keep our food in since we had no power for a long time. We slept in the top floor with a kerosene heater to stay warm. There was no school for a month.
In Michigan the weekend snow storm stopped most events. I went to work as if it was just another day. When I left the house it was 0 degrees and a foot of snow. When I returned 5 degrees and two feet of snow. This does not include windchill.
If you want a harrowing story of what a US blizzard can do, look up the story of Minnie Mae Freeman, and the Schoolchildren's Blizzard of 1888. It was commemorated in 1967 with a Venetian glass mural in the Nebraska State Capitol building
That was a unique blizzard. it was so powerful that it impacted as far east as New England. To this day, it's considered the worst blizzard to hit New England (although, we call it the Great Blizzard of 1888). And that's saying something about it's power. Because it's competition includes the Blizzards of 1977 and 1978
@@andrewb1921That’s actually a common misconception (I used to think it too). The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard in the Midwest happened in January of 1888. The Great Blizzard of 1888 in the East was in March of 1888. A bad year for blizzards, yes, but not the same blizzard.
I do and we've been snowed in for days... and we have a driving ban!! We had 70 MPH winds last week and many, many people lost their power... I was one of them!!
Still dealing with plumbing damage on 1/20/24. -31 temps, frozen pipes, small pipes burst, no water, all that fixed BUT still waiting for 1/24/24 when the plumbers get here to fix my shower pipes. I'm very good at sponge baths as I had a lot of experience with those as a kid. It's 44 now, thank you very much!
When in Alaska, I keep a survival kit in the cars filled with spare blankets, excessive heavy socks, handwarmers, matches, hats, road flares, strobes, and some granola bars and jerky.
I live in Wisconsin and have similar anxiety around water getting into my basement. One thing that helps me is to shovel the snow away about a foot from the mall around the house. Its annoying but keeping water out makes me happy.
I wish I had the energy to try that but we got too much snow where I am in Michigan and it’s too cold right now. Between the basement, the ice dams in my gutters, and the 40 degree weather plus rain they’re calling for, next week could be very unpleasant for me. I hope you have better luck!
Arthur looks so happy romping in the snow. How he has grown. All that was missing from this video was Kafka sitting in an upstairs window bemusedly looking down at the Arthur outside in the cold. 😻
Lived in NW Iowa for 6 years. Had blizzard warnings and ny fruend and I hunkered down around the wood stove. He had filled every container he could find with wood and brought it in. We only went out long enough to throw feed to the horse in the barn.
After moving to Phoenix in the winter of 1973.(And that was a crap winter for the south) From upstate NY. My father has not tired of calling back or telling anyone who will listen: He never gets tired of shoveling Sunshine. 🌞 If they are smart when they see his name on caller ID they won't answer! I don't and I live in Phoenix. By the way don't worry about the BBQ grill the snow will melt before you will want to use it. Just saying. 🤷🏼♀️ Stay Warm!
The struggle is real! -A fellow glasses wearer I’m in Wisconsin, and I was waiting for this video knowing you got the same winter storms we did. We actually got two, one on Tuesday that was heavy, sticky snow (great for snowmen but awful for narrow arborvitaes that bend over from the weight and stay bent if you don’t clean them right away, dropping all the snow on your own head). That was followed by the Friday storm. More snow but a little bit lighter. Then we got the bitter cold and wind pulling snow drifts across rural roads and driveways faster than they can be plowed. Neither me nor my car were particularly thrilled to have to go into work on that -11 morning. It’s supposed to poke above freezing this weekend and maybe even rain. I’m not looking forward to the ice slabs when that slop refreezes.
i remember 3 terrible storms in michigan. 1967 school was closed for a week and you couldn't see out the south windows of our house because snow was up to the roof. 1978 schools were closed for a week and as a policeman we only answered emergency calls.people donated their 4 wheel drive vehicles and we still got stuck. i had to call a road grader to get me out. these 2 were in flint. the last one was in sault ste marie. i don't remember the exact year, probably in the 90's. one weekend it snowed 60 inches. kind of a fluffy snow but 5 feet never less.
I'm watching this in northern Indiana, where we are currently enjoying a heat wave: it got all the way up to 20 F (-7 C) today and this afternoon I braved the cold to dig our cars out of the snow. Now I'm sitting comfortably with my little dog sleeping at my side, eating a bowl of ice cream. Mmmmm... ice cream!
I was driving up to visit a Canadian friend one winter in the early 2000s and just past Grand Forks it started snowing so hard I got behind a semi truck and just followed them cause they were breaking the drifts for me. They closed the border crissing behind me and I ended up stuck in Winnipeg for a few extra days till the highways opened up again. Fun times.
Albertan here. It's been -40 for the past week, and it's nothing out of the ordinary, it happens usually twicer per winter at least. No one gets to stay home from work, we just get used to it. Life goes on.
I live in Ontario but have friends out west in Alberta. Been hearing about some of the crazy temperatures you've been having, but nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't get that cold here as often, but being from a rural area, when it snows, it snows.
I still remember one Christmas when I was really little and we had to creep slowly home from my grandmother's house, black ice all over the road and my POV out the window as I marked minivan after minivan what had slid off into ditches. Or the Valentine's Day where I thought going to the movies would be *fine* because it was supposed to stop snowing while we'd be in. Only to find out that after the snow came driving wind that unrelentingly kicked all that powder across the road, until there was little visibility and absolutely no stripes on the asphalt. When asked "What route should we take home?" I immediately said the one with the most evergreen trees next to the road: sure enough, they were the only thing that midigated the whiteout. Not even getting into the multiple storm related winter power outages that nearly did us. ...And now today after dealing with stupidity icy sidewalks because people don't know how to shovel properly (😡) I ask myself why on Earth do I still get excited about flurries and claim to love this season 💀 (The answer is because it's effing magical and there aren't any bugs flying in my face or heatstroke trying to boil me alive. Long live the snowy hellscape ❄️)
I just learned a new term this morning: Frost Quake. Happening in Chicago right now. It's when the ground gets so cold that the water table freezes, expands, and causes audible pops and cracks along with some modest seismic activity.
We are just coming off an ice storm here in Oregon. I love snow and we can and do get snow, but we get so many ice storms. Last big one in 2021, no heat or electricity for 10 days 😜
I have s pent most of my life here in Utah and can really empathize with that story about getting stuck in a blizzard on a long drive. My friend and I were heading back to college after thanksgiving and a storm that was supposed to be a minor snow storm turned into a massive blizzard. it turned a 2 1/2 trip into nearly a 9 hour trip.
I live in central Ohio and was supposed to go to the office today for the one day a month when my department does that. I woke up at 8 AM and saw that it was 6°F outside. I then proceeded to make the rational decision of going the heck back to sleep.
October 6th 2013 lives on in infamy in South Dakota. Winter Storm Atlas was bad enough to be named. In addition to dumping two feet of snow in the region, it killed half our cows and coincided with 13 tornadoes.
The last few days have been painfully cold here. Side note, when living in London, one morning we woke to about 1" of snow. Folks are not accustomed to snow in London, but it was nice to see how excited everyone was about it 😊
1" of snow in the UK and everything comes to a shuddering halt. Trains, airports, roads and motorways . No-one has the right footwear and broken arms, hips ect fill the A&E wards.
My nephew lives in Leesburg Virginia. Got 3 inches of snow a few days ago. He's from the Scranton PA area. "These people are insane. If there's WWIII it will start in winter. The country will be crippled by these clowns if there's a snow storm on top of it".
@@dp-sr1fdsounds like eastern North Carolina 😂 born in Kansas, but lived in New Hampshire for a while, been thru ice storms, blizzards etc, I giggle at the reactions of people here just because I am used to it but it’s no more than an inch or so😂
1978 was famous for blizzards. I was a kid in CT when we got hit. No school for a week and we all made tunnel cities in the many feet of snow on our lawns.
I grew up on Long Island NY. I remember the blizzards as a kid. Come on down to coastal North Carolina. We are freezing to death when it dips into the 30s. We very rarely see snow. Plenty of rain and lovely hurricanes in the warmer months.
I googled Helsinki’s average weather and my hometown in north west Michigan’s average winter weather to get an idea of what it was like (I was watching a Finnish tv show). I was very disappointed when I read my hometown is on average colder than Helsinki and gets TWICE as much snow. I could move to Finland for a warm up. ☹
After living in northern Minnesota for 30 years, I can say without a doubt I would rather have a blizzard with -40F+ windchills over an ice storm any day!
oh yes. Ice storms are terrible.
Totally agree ice storms are horrendous
Temps like that are life-threatening, as I'm sure you know, stay safe & warm!
We had an ice storm here in Huntsville once, it started out as snow and then turned into sleet. After the power got knocked out it was silent, except for the sound of big tree limbs breaking which made it sound like random gunfire. We actually ran out of firewood which was no fun.
Mean while in Portland, we're just getting over one that started on Friday. People think we're just bad at dealing with winter storms but no it's always just ice storms.
This is why most midwesterners have a winter coat and an "OMG it's COLD" coat. Time for the OMG coat.
Yep. And my wife hates that bright blue parka.
And Pak Boots
And when it's time to stop fucking around & bring out the real winter coat - the man's fluffy winter coat!
I hate how most women's winter coats are noisy, thin garbage anymore...
Same here in Canada. You have your normal winter coat for the days that are just regular cold, and you have a coat for the days that are stupid cold.
I've never felt more seen.... And yes, I brought out my *Coat* coat last week 😂
I love this guy. He is acutely British yet is able to totally grasp the American idea of humor. He spans the pond amazingly well.
He's acutely English. And American humour isn't exactly complicated.
@victoria, where do you think we got most of our dry humor from?
His humor is very British. If you see it here it's because we got it from them. The British are kind of famous for it.
Is he understanding american humor, or do we understand British humor?
@@weebotaku9200 Everyone under the sun understands American humour. It's extremely simplistic, made for the dumber(est) audience.
I just moved to the Midwest after having lived my whole life in the desert and I gotta say... nothing could have prepared me for this and I'm not leaving my house until spring
Smart
Welcome to the Midwest. The winters vary from "why... Just why?" to "bloody awful" to "eh, it sucks but at least we aren't in Minnesota." Just one of the charms of living in the region.
@@philhamilton8731 My niece and her family live in Minnesota. I visited Christmas a few years ago. It’s always been my belief as a Chicagoan I could handle any cold weather. Minnesota winter is next level cold.
@@philhamilton8731I think the minnesotans say "at least it's not north dakota"
Welcome to the Midwest where “it wouldn’t be too bad if not for the wind” weather!
I remember getting stranded in a small Colorado town about 20 years ago during a blizzard. All the roads closed, and all of the hotels got filled. The town had to open up the community center gymnasium and take in traveling refugees until the roads opened up again.We were there for about 24 hours, and they fed us and set up mass sleeping arrangements on the floor with mats and blankets. It was actually pretty well organized and a bit of an adventure, and everyone got along really well. But it was a powerful reminder that Mother Nature is still the boss :)
The mountain towns in this state are used to that sort of thing, yeah, and they have plans in place that benefit from more than a century of experience, in some cases. 😀
People probably got along because deep down you all knew that if you started a fight, your ass was going outside in the cold and saying a permanent good night.
Sounds like the set up of a Stephen King novel
@@Big_TexOr South Park episode
@@chrisbeerguy1489 😂😂😂
The most interesting weather report I heard while in Northern Illinois was a forecast of "Ineffectual Sunshine!"
That’s when you know the station techs’ SAD started to kick in 😂
It’s such a cloudy day
Seems we’ll never see the sun
Or feel the day has possibilities
Frozen in the moment -
the lack of imagination
Between how it is and how it ought to be
-- from _How It Is_ by Rush
Well, okay, Neil was speaking figuratively, but it fits.
I think I recently saw "plenty of sunshine" on one of those days where the temps were in the lower single digits.
I think this is one of the reasons we moved to the Phoenix area...the sunshine is quite effectual here!
Welcome to the Great Lakes region, Lawrence. Always carry a huge survival kit in your car ----- food, water, flares, camp stove with fuel and matches, and most importantly ----- space blankets and a feed shovel. Feed shovels make the BEST snow shovels in the world. Voice of experience? You betcha. I had stage 2 hypothermia in an epic blizzard in my childhood, then again the next year in another one, then again three years after in *another* one. (Laura Ingalls Wilder and I shared a lot in common in winter.) Also, these days, those crakc-packs for heat. Oh, and flashlight and batteries to spare. It's a pain lugging the tub in and out, but y'know, it saved lives for people many a time.
You're absolutely right. A good feed shovel beats any other thing you own for moving snow by hand. No sense dying on the road if you know it's gonna get bad.
I don't carry a stove or fuel. Rather eat cold food than have to worry I'm not ventilating properly enough.
Because the great Lakes suck
You can also do canned goods (canned fruit, canned vegetables, SPAM, baked beans). All you need is a can opener and something to eat the food with. Or you can make some Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches or have the items for something like that.
This is so true. I grew up in Scotland and thought I knew winter weather before I moved to just south of Buffalo.
Welcome to the Southtowns. Isn't it fun!
If you're in one of the bands of lake effect snow it's one of the snowiest places on the entire planet. You're getting 10+ feet of snow every year. Guaranteed. I don't even know why they let people live there. I'd consider that land uninhabitable. Once it snowed 11-3/4 feet in 10 days there. Might as well just call it an even dozen. If by the grace of God I got out of that I'd burn my house down and move to the tropics.
@@1pcfred, I live in the Lake Erie snow belt and I’ll take that over hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides, and earthquakes.
@@TheBullyMomma I guess you can usually dig your way out of snow. I'm not a fan of digging my way out of snow though. I've been in a few hurricanes and one earthquake. I'd say that all beats shoveling snow. But the events I've experienced were not strong hurricanes or a powerful earthquake.
@@1pcfredi live in coastal texas. For the most part living in a subtropical area is great, but i have survived too many hurricanes to want to stay here much longer. I plan to move to central texas where it is safer from storms and surges but still free from heavy snow. (It doesn't snow at all where i live, have only seen snow once in my life)
This morning I was out with my dogs and the temp was 24. It felt absolutely balmy compared to the past week, so I sat in a lawn chair for half an hour and enjoyed it.
We got to about 30 in KC area yesterday and I only needed a light jacket 🧥
It's funny because the same temp in the Spring feels warmer than in the Fall.
I went for a a four wheeler ride yesterday in 40 degree weather in my nightgown and crochet cloak and felt so cozy and nice. Sliding on the ice but it sure did feel balmy.
Down in the south it got pretty bad, not as bad as the north but for awhile there with the added wind chill we were at -11F which for the rest of the world was around -24c. Can't say I'm a fan of these Polar Vortexes but at least the electrical grid didn't collapse this time, so "positivity"?
after that -35 feel like temp for a few nights I was out in a t shirt when it broke zero degrees@@sharonthompson5715
There was a winter storm here in Nebraska in 1888, called the Childrens Blizzard. 213 children died when the blizzard came up without warning (very common here in the Great Plains) and the teachers sent the children home, as the heat in schools was lets say inadequate. They froze to death when it became a white-out and their parents had no way of knowing they didn't stay at school, so didn't set out to fetch them. It's been below zero for days, snow and ice. But things could be worse, so I tell myself.
I haven’t heard about this. How very sad for those people.
Good Lord, that's rough.
And one intrepid schoolteacher led her students through the whiteout conditions to a nearby farm that was better equipped to take care of her and her 13 students. This was commemorated in a mural installed in the Nebraska State Capitol in 1967.
What an awful story. 😢
@@brycepatties yeah, as I recall, the teacher tied loops in a rope and had the children hold on to it to keep them from getting lost in the whiteout
"Exactly a few years ago approximately." Ooo, Lawrence. Keep being amazing!
The "blizzard" in Chicago wasn't the problem this past week, it was the temperatures!
I honestly laughed at how little snow we got compared to how much was in the forecast, but my heater was struggling to keep the temperature livable for a couple days there.
that's cuz all of it dropped on Iowa... snowiest week on record in the QC.
and a BUNCH of ELECTRIC vehicles got STUCK on the roads........
Pinola in laporte county Indiana got 34" I'm 30 miles east we usually get the lake effect .we got about ten over the week
@ActionNerdGo The QC snow was absurd.
Hey Lawrence. I am a Chicago native and have a great blizzard story. It was April fools day and I was downtown getting a haircut in the 1970s. Snow was predicted but it was a lake effect storm . I got out of the haircut and there were 6" on my 1965 Bug. I got on Lake Shore Drive and there was a traffic jam. We all got stuck there, and it got so bad that drifts began covering the stranded cars. I was stuck for 12 hours there. Another driver got in my car and we picked out way through the abandoned cars and exited on an entrance ramp. Got home at 3am. It was the only time my VW ran well. It took a week to tow all the cars off the Drive. Craziest thing I have lived through!!
Year's ago when Atlanta got shut down people were towing cars that weren't theirs. So many car's were stolen. In the south we measure snow in flakes typically 😂 I do have to say the silence is never more beautiful than when it's snowing.
Those bugs had the worst heating system ever. Barely better than nothing.
I remember that storm. The waves from the lake North of downtown crashed onto the Drive and froze many vehicles solid.
@@cydrych But they could sure get through deep snow!
@@cathyrowe594 that’s the beauty of a rear engine car. All the weight on the back wheels.
What transforms a snow storm into a blizzard is the wind. If it blows strong enough, you will have white out conditions which means you simply cannot see. People have died by freezing to death very close to safety because they could not see how to get there. Growing up in New York I have been through so many snow storms and blizzards that I literally forgot most of them. I now live in a tropical paradise known as the Philippines where snow is not a thing
Blizzard = wind and white out. Not just snow.
That’s what they said. 🤷🏻♂️
@@vincedibona4687😂 ikr lol
35 mph +, heavy or blown snow with visibility below 1/4 mile, for 3 or more hours.
On the North Dakota farm where my mother grew up, they tied a rope from the house to the barn before the blizzard hit so that people could find their way back and forth and wouldn't die just feet away from shelter when it whited out. And yes, they *had* to get to the barn because they had to milk the cows. At 4 AM it was brutal.
Grew up in Chicago and now live in Indiana... I feel your pain Laurence! A few years back we had something far worse than a blizzard... an ice storm. Ice covered so many trees and took out power lines everywhere! Can't walk, can't drive, and the power is out, so no heat. Surprisingly, my block was one of the few that never lost power from that.
That's Portland right now. I can't leave the porch because of the freezing rain. It is a literal ice rink out there.
Ice storms really are the worst. If they're not too destructive, the ice covered trees are kind of pretty, but slipping and sliding everywhere is awful.
Everyone needs to get a kerosene heater, stockpile kerosene, and push back when the government tries to ban, restrict, or tax kerosene. A kerosene heater isn't just a heat source but you can also put a pot or pan on top of it to cook. I've even managed to cook shrimp, steak, and ground beef for sloppy joe on a kerosene heater last time the power went out.
had a huge snow storm and cold snap in WI. Power was out for 3 days and a whole week without internet.
Happened to me last year here in Michigan. Back to back ice storms, and nearly a million people without power across the state.
Luckily my power was only off for just over a day, but there were people on my road that were without power for over a week.
I spent around 15k to get a whole home standby generator installed because of that event, and the fact that since moving to the midwest from the west coast, I've lost power more in 3 years than in my entire life before moving.
About a month after install, we had a series of tornadoes knock out power for nearly a week, but with the generator I was able to just live normally. AC on, clothes washing, wifi, the whole kit and kaboodle. WELL worth the investment.
Back in the Blizzard of 78, I'll never forget seeing where the front end loaders had piled snow up to 6 or 8 ft from the power lines in Michigan.
I went to work that night and didn’t get home for 3 or 4 days. Going home snow piled to 8 or 10 feet on either side. Was like driving through a tunnel but open top. Lol
child's play compared to Tahoe
That storm was absolutely crazy! I was 11 years old at the time. Our furnace NEVER stopped running for two days.
the Chicago blizzard of 79 cost the mayor his job!
My parents always used to talk about that storm. They took their snowmobiles and delivered groceries to people. My dad always recounted how he put his foot down to steady his snowmobile and his foot slipped on metal and he realized there was a car underneath him.
The Long Winter is one of my favourites of the little house books. It’s been in the -30-40C here in Edmonton Alberta. We were spoiled by such a mild December.
It is my favorite too! Just fascinating how they made it thru!
@K.C-2049 ice fog can be pretty!
California resident: "I don't have to experience the arctic blast!"
Also California resident: _endlessly in pain when the temperature drops near freezing, and by near freezing I mean below 50F_
Well yes, that....and your Satanic Communist Governor.
I live in Indiana and I absolutely have to force myself to wear long pants once it gets below freezing. Some people just don't get cold. That being said, you'll never see me on the news without a shirt.
Haha! I remember the first winter I moved to California from Indiana, and the weather forecasters were telling people to 'bundle up against the cold' and they were interviewing people in parkas. My mother was visiting and we thought, "oh dear, better get the winter gear back out" We stepped outside and realized the 'cold' was actually around 52. Went back in, shed our Midwestern winter stuff and put on sweatshirts instead, laughing hysterically.
Yeah, but most of us don't get CA's bad earthquakes, wildfires and those wonderful floods and Santa Ana winds....😔
@@carolynhotchkiss4760 Hahaha, yes, some of the Florida snowbirds come back to Indiana in April wearing hats with ear flaps when it's over 50. 😆
I remember pulling out of my driveway to go to university, stopping briefly to plug in my phone, and I just slid down until I was turned 90 degrees on the road.
Uni is 45 minutes away on highways. I'm not risking my life for Calculus.
My blizzard memory was the Blizzard of 1978 in mid Michigan. I was 8 years old and got up the next morning to walk a mile to school, only to find out school was cancelled. Our whole town was pretty much buried for a week.
Were the phone lines down?? Why didn't anyone call you or you them?
@@StrangeScaryNewEngland I don't remember. I was only 8 years old then. 🤣
@@OCMike Haha. Good point. Sorry. XD
@@OCMike My mother was 18 at the time living in Mass, and she remembers that pretty much everything around here was down or inaccessible. Fire rescue were out bringing people food, water, and fuel. Being born in '91, I've had my share of bad blizzards up here in New England, but never anything that bad. I do remember a handful of years ago, getting hit by a nor'easter that dumped snow up to my hips, and I'm 6 feet tall. I walked to work and almost couldn't get through the snow, thought I was going to have a heart attack
My dad used to tell us about how he was delivering groceries to people with his snowmobile after that storm and he put his foot down to steady the snowmobile and found that there was a car underneath him.
As someone old enough to have worked the blizzard of 78 in the northern Ohio area. I can tell you that every storm after that seems mild. When snow drifts get high enough to bury a whole neighborhood, a foot of snow is minor.
As someone in Texas, I saw a foot of snow once. It was positively apocalyptic.
Lot of shouting about "snow doesn't come in INCHES!"
@@CptJistuce hilarious
@@CptJistuce our weather people can't forecast snow at all. They claim six to eight inches, I don't worry. When they say maybe a dusting, I'm getting the snow blower ready and waxing the shovel. Never fails.
@@peteengard9966Yeah, mine are like that in spring and fall. Maybe it's hot, maybe it's cold, maybe there's a thunderstorm coming through... we'll find out when we get there.
If they claim 6-8 inches of snow here, I'm just "Where did you say you moved here from?" An inch of snow is about the worst we ever see(outside of the one time)
@@peteengard9966 Before the Chicago snowstorm of 67, they predicted light snow, but we had 50+ mph (85+ kph) winds that picked up moisture from the lake and dropped 23 inches (58 cm) of snow. Because of the winds there were 15 ft drifts (4.5 meters) of snow. We didn't have the snow removal equipment that we have today, so all the adults in the neighborhood grabbed their shovels and came out to clear the snow from the streets and sidewalks. We kids went out and helped for about 5 minutes, but we weren't strong enough to do much, so we just played in the snow. I kept jumping from my neighbor's porch into a 7' drift next to their house. After it was over, the YMCA two doors down from me hired someone to plow their parking lot, which resulted in a 15' pile of snow that covered the fence separating the parking lot and the alley with a peak 7' higher than the top of the fence. We played king of the hill on that thing for more than a week.
I'm from Chicagoland and I remember the Blizzard of '78 during my childhood. Six-foot drifts!
That had to be the best winter of your childhood. 😂
@histrion2, do you remember the Chicago city worker who purposely rammed his snow plow into dozens of cars in '78? He was so fried from working endless hours, he just cracked. Unintentionally, he killed a person in his wake.
I’m old enough to remember not only that one but the one before 1967
I was living in NE Indiana and that was the best winter of my childhood...school closed snow drifts forts ect. Best time
It wasn't any better in Massachusetts in 78. They say a small town in upstate New York had it the worst.
I must share this with my London bestie who says, "Your so lucky you get proper snow!"
Laurance, you need to experience an East Coast Nor'easter to really learn to hate winter. First it snows 10 inches then it backs up and snows another 10 inches before finally snowing another 10 inches. You'd think I'm exaggerating, but hopefully somebody from the East Coast will comment here and confirm just how much snow a good Nor'easter can drop over 48 hours. I grew up in the Upper Midwest and I was greatly impressed by the event.
One storm my neighbor put all the snow he collected with his plow into one giant pile, shit must have towered what seemed like 20 feet tall. I always liked the fresh snow-fall, but all that accumulated snowfall on the ground it becomes really annoying in the long-term when it starts getting any combination of icy, muddy slush, or rock solid. Very satisfying when warm weather comes to rid you of the leftovers.
I’m in upstate New York and you are so right.
Yes, as a Bostonian, I can confirm the Nor’easter. The most famous was the Blizzard of’78, when it snowed for three straight days. We were buried! It took weeks to be plowed out. No school for two weeks. It was awesome!
@@happycommuter3523 go Red Sox!
The blizzard of 1978 and 1996 in North East was brutal. Each time it snowed for 2 days. Never saw the ground until mid April. Then the ice storm of 1994....that sucked.
The most depressing Laura Ingalls Wilder book was The Long Winter. They woke with ice above them and spent all day twisting hay into logs to burn. They were without Pa who was working to free the trains and were almost out of food when supplies finally reached them.
I think the saddest part of that book was Pa realizing that his hands were too frozen and gnarled to play his fiddle. Even that little bit of comfort was denied them.
I need to reread that series of books.
@@als3022me too i read them years ago though i still have them
She originally called that book The Hard Winter, since that is what that year’s season was always called historically. However, her publisher thought it was too bleak a title so they made her change it.
@@kathyastrom1315 Didn't help, lol. I was reading it by the pool in Los Angeles and was cold. It was endlessly dreary.
There's also another phenomenon called "lake effect snow" which can really drop even more snow on you. My sister now winters in Florida, and she was laughing about the residents bundling up in heavy coats when the temperature dropped below 60 degrees. In the meantime, it's a balmy 10 degrees here in upstate NY.
Then the winterized gators come out and it no longer becomes a laughing matter.
Blizzards generally come from the northwest or west, so the lake effect snow during blizzards falls on Michigan and western New York state. If Chicago gets lake effect snow, there are rarely blizzard level winds, however, there can be heavy snow within 1 to 5 miles from the Lake Michigan, occasionally it will reach out about 10-15 miles.
I spent my first 12 years in Cleveland (northeast OH) and we would get lake effect snow. One winter when I was a baby but that I heard about, the snow got high enough to cover the doors and shut down the roads, etc. In our neighborhood, which was filled with families with very young kids, the Dads got together and arranged a convoy, trudging through the snow in a line, pulling their kids' little red wagons, to the nearest market a few miles away to buy milk and other necessities, then slogged back. I wasn't told, but I suspect that after they got home, one of their group hosted the others in drinking a few (or many) hot toddies.
I just Googled it, and it was a 5-day snowstorm (The Thanksgiving Blizzard of 1950 - yes, I'm old). Here's the description: "Nearly the entire state was blanketed with 10 inches (25 cm) of snow, with 20-30 inches (51-76 centimetres) being measured in eastern sections of Ohio. The highest report was 44 inches (110 cm) from Steubenville. Snow drifts were up to 25 feet (7.6 m) deep."
acclimation is very real. I mean, you think you know winter until a frozen iguana falls on your head.
10, sunny and no wind is just cold. A no big deal cold. Yeah you wish it was bit warmer, like a tropical 30s, but it's an "Meh".
I remember the Blizzard of "67 in Chicago. I have a photo of 6 y/o me in a snowsuit, wearing mittens, and a hat with a pom-pom on top. I was standing next to a pile of snow next to our house that was as high as the house.
My family was moving away that day. We and the moving van Barely made it down the highway before the roads closed up. I still remember the sight of snow falling as I got into the back seat. I was a sniffling little kid who didn’t want to leave my home.
23 inches fell. That day in 1967 is still number one for the most snow.
Your idea of a blizzard is cute... Love from Canada
Yea that confused me a bit too. There wasn't much snow on the ground
I had a Zoom call with a McGill University professor and she told me about the trucks that hoover the snow from the streets and dump it outside the city. Makes me shutter just thinking about it. Love from Florida.
I can relate. As a resident of Los Angeles, CA in the winter of 1999 we had to endure rain that lasted somewhere from 15 to 30 minutes that one day it rained and temperatures that plummeted to 53 degrees. I'm lucky to have survived.
I'm sure a book will be written about that someday.
Not so fast, some midwesterner may take you down.
now you have to survive tent cities, unaffordable housing, unbearable traffic and skyrocketing crime. I prefer the blizzards.
How about the atmospheric river storm in Dec 2022? Bonkers.
How did you survive? You are truly blessed. Of course, I'm sitting here with -20c temp and snow up to my belt buckle. I hope I have your strength!
As a life long midwesterner, I often feel bears may be on to something in how to deal with winter.
This just proves the rule that you never *go* to Dennys, you can only *end up* at Dennys.
I live in southern Ontario, and I will say that the weather has definitely become more mild since I was younger. Nonetheless, all my British friends are always shocked by the cold and snow. I couldn't imagine how difficult it must be in some of the Northern Canadian provinces which received mountains worth of snow.
The call it sunny Manitoba ,cause it is to cold outside for the air to hold any moisture
You need to remember almost everyone in Canada lives within 100 miles of the US border. There's a reason for this.
I'm in Canada, across from Detroit. The weather sure has changed since the 60's. I hate the freezing cold and the hot humid summer.
I am old and born in Chicago. I lived through the blizzard of January 25-26 of 1967 and January 13-14 of 1979. 23 inches fell in 1967 and 21 inches in 1979. It was so cold that the mountain of ice that was formed did not completely melt until May. So though these last few days have been harsh, it's nothing compared to those good old days. And think about it, no internet or video games to distract us. We were all out skating, snowball fighting and sledding outside even in the cold.
all those things where the distractions of that time, internet and video games keeps people safe as they are in doors and not in a possible danger area.
@@rocksfire4390....that is dumbest statement ever!!!
My first winter in the Midwest was '81/'82. I dropped out of school and went home to NorCal before Thanksgiving that same year. Nope! Mom may have been born in Chicago, but I didn't get any of those snow genes. Y'all are crazy to live there.
I was here too.. For fun we were using the garage roof as the top of our man made sledding hill. No school for at three days! Today's kids will never enjoy another snow day with the home e learning. So sad for them.
@@CarlyD. Where I learned that you don't really need wheels to go skitching.
I grew up in Chicago and vividly remember the Blizzard of 1967. The snow was piled up sufficiently to the point some people could climb out their second floors and jump in snow banks.
Same here. We lived in suburb of Rochester, NY. I remember brother and I helping Dad shovel driveway. In free time, sledding at Harris Hill and also downhill portions of our driveway. Also, stand up sledding down the hill from our driveway. Mom offering up hot cocoa for helping Dad.
We had the blizzard of 78 in northern Indiana and was just as deep.
In 1978, we lived in suburban Chicago and had to dig tunnels so our dog could go pee outside. She (and her bladder) waited patiently for a few extra hours after breakfast for us to dig out just enough that she wouldn't sink into the snow and get lost.
Mind you, we didn't dig out channels or pathways. We dug TUNNELS-- the snow stayed intact above our heads as we dug out a small area, about the size of a small bathroom or large closet.
Our cars were indistinguishable from the many snow drifts in the deep, deep snow.
‘67 was harder than ‘78 because it hit mid day. It meant many were stuck on there way out of school and work. ‘78 lasted much longer and was followed by a long cold streak.
@@anneahlert2997same.
I remembered Blizzard of 1979 in northern Illinois. I was with my sister at our babysitter’s/neighbor’s home after school playing with her son and daughter. Our parents were running late to pickup us after school. We lived across the street from our neighbor’s home. We had dinner at her home. I remembered seeing snow right near the top step in front of her house. The next morning all of the schools are closed the following day. I remembered it was a sunny winter day with deep snow. I followed my mother in the deep snow. I was 8 years old and seeing all the kids in my neighborhood playing in the snow. My father had a lawnmower tractor with a snow plow attachment. It was easy for him. I remembered almost all of the snow melted in March. I remembered going uphill in the front yard touching the snow wearing a t-shirt sweatshirt and jeans. I have been in a few winters with lots of snow in northeastern Wisconsin,too. One winter there was a lot of snow that lasted till early May. Usually it ends in late March or early April. One year in 2012 in early March. It went from late winter towards a very early summer weather in the 70’s for the highs. I remembered it because in early March 2012 that I was in a bad car accident that I broke my left ankle from the impact from the other car that hit my little car. I wasn’t seriously injured from that accident. I even remembered 3 winters in a row that had over a foot of snow in February and March. That was 2007,2008, and 2009. Sometimes winters were very mild,too. Last year December and January were very mild w/o any snow almost. February was so cold for the entirely the whole month.
Gotta go with this. Back in 2003, we went to England to visit my in-laws. We actually rented a car (I panicked as my husband learned to drive in the States). It was snowing pretty good. The locals were driving like Mississippians in Chicago during the winter. My husband? Drove like he was a Wisconsin native.
I worked for GE in Schenectady right after graduating from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. They sent me on training in December of 1978 and January of 1979 to the gas turbine power plant under the skyway in Calumet City. What a miserable experience for a California boy to stand in the below zero Degree F outside for 8 hour shifts. A blizzard came through one night and dumped 24 inches of snow overnight. We spent a whole day poking suspect snow drifts with a pole to locate our diesel air compressor which wouldn't start anyway. The crew would work for 30 minutes then take a 2 hour warmup break. I had a snowmobile suit on all day with an extra hooded jacket on the outside. I don't like cold.
It was terrible. People in Chicago freaked out. A city worker flipped out and ran cars over with his front end loader. Some guys spent the day digging their car out in front of their house when a snotty girl parked there and told them ''Its a public street.'' They shoveled the snow back onto her car, found a hose, and spayed water from the hot water tank onto it to turn it into a block of ice until May. Meanwhile, I discovered something called Black Ice. Step on the brakes and the car slides through the red light intersection just like the 12 others in front of you. No control at all. GE rescued me from Chicago and sent me to a refinery in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf for a few months to thaw out.
Meanwhile in NorCal, its really cold outside right now. 48F..... It might rain Friday.
I remember the blizzard of 78. My dad, tired of shoveling the driveway, came inside and yelled “pack up we’re moving to Florida!”
Thank you, Dad! 🌴 ☀️
"GE, We bring good things to life!"
@@maralisil Yeah, like they designed and built the Vulcan 20mm cannon, GAU-8 30mm Warthog gun, and built casings and parts for nuclear weapons. My kind of place.
You should be grateful for every drop of rain.
@@kimmer6 They also designed indestructible home appliances.
I'm completely and utterly a little bit thrilled to see a new vid from you! I've been binge watching "Lost in The Pond" for weeks now. I love Lawrence and Tarah!
Midwestern flower pots and tee light candles are great emergency heaters. Use bricks and foil and you can cook over it too.
January always makes me think of 1816 "The Year Without Summer" Stay warm Lawrence.
There was a massive volcanic eruption, the largest in 1300 years) of Mt Tambora, causing a volcanic winter.
Yes I know @@bestill365
Minnesotan here. My first driving experience, back when I turned 15 and got my driver's permit, my mom took me right onto the road, during a blizzard. She insisted I get on the highway too, and I couldn't see more than 40-50 feet in front of the car.
I remember the blizzard in the Chicago area in 1967. 23 inches of snow, I think that was the most that has ever fallen at once.
Do you mean 23 ft?
In my area we had an ice storm over the weekend which kept everyone who had the least amount of common sense at home. I slipped on some ice on my porch and the bruise still hurts. But I’d still take this over the oppressive heat of southern California any time.
I loved your dog’s attitude toward the snow! Dealing with it is just a matter of preparation and attention. Keep a month or two worth of food in stock in case you get stuck at home, and shovel the snow along walkways and driveways when you can so they’ll clear up quicker when the weather gets nicer.
The oppressive heat of southern California? Apparently you've never lived in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, or Texas, not to mention the horribly humid South.
@@richardtibbitts3841I don't have ac living by the beach. Going to Arizona in the summer is amazing, I need a sweater to be inside any Comercial or residential building. So yeah 90 degrees for three months with barely an ocean breeze is more oppressive then desert areas pumping ac desperately. Oh an less humidity when not at the beach.
Why would you ever live somewhere without heat and AC?
@@Earthling247- when i lived in San Diego i never really used my AC or Heating! Is is a temperate zone where summers rarely got hotter than 90’s (but we still had the ocean breeze that made it feel like low 80s) or winters cooler than mid 60s during the day! Even now, my home in Temecula rarely sees AC usage and my heater usage is typically for under 10 hours total for the winter!
I’m from Michigan and midwestern winters are actually super mild. In Montana it snows up to 500 inches per season and temps can stay as low as -40 Fahrenheit for weeks at a time. The winter also lasts from early October till early June.
My Canadian wife thinks we're all wimps here. She was tickled when the people in St. Paul tried to scare her with snow stories.
Lol 🤣😂🤣 but what would she think of alaska or the north pole?
Thats because she has done that, been there and knows what a real blizzard is, not just an over hyped snow storm.
We feel the same in Colorado when the people back east talk about the "mountains" they have in their states. 😆
@@thomashiggins9320 lol 😂
Tell her about horror stories of 110 down here in South
When your eyes are very cold due to wind chill and a big snowflake hits your eyeball, it literally feels like glass cutting your eye, until a few seconds later when it melts. Memoirs of your paper delivery girl, because, yeah, your news was TOTALLY worth it...
Been there, done that ...ouch that and breaking trail thru 3-4' drifts for my dog who accompanied me on my route.
Last year in Buffalo, we had two storms about 4-5 weeks apart that dumped 6 feet of snow each on different parts of the area. We've only had about half that this week. Still, it's a good thing I don't need to go anywhere, though.
Are you referring to the Christmas blizzard of '22? fortunately I had those days off from work and was at home. From what I've been told that blizzard was worse than the blizzard of '77, my mom was pregnant with me at the time.
Now you’ve done it. Opened up a subject most Americans love. Weather related stories. 😅😅😅😅. Thank you.
Lawrence, I completely sympathize with you. Here in San Diego it got so cold last night that I had to roll down the sleeves of my windbreaker.
I'm envious as we just came off a stint where it hit -42c in the day before wind in my neck of Canada. It hurt to breathe.
@@Juggernath Having lived in the sunbelt my entire life, I cannot even imagine feeling that temperature just by going outside. My freezer only goes down to 0°C.
I remember driving from Sioux Falls SD to Minneapolis in a blizzard and the only way that we knew we were on the road, is the overturned semi trucks in the ditch.
Oh! Lived in Chicago for 2yrs and it got so cold out that one time I cried! And I grew up in Syracuse NY ❄️
In MN in Jan 1975 my parents got so much snow on their dairy farm than the cows were able to get onto the roof of a single story extension on the back of the barn. One fell off on the lee side (almost no snow) and broke a leg.
Around December 1978 there was a blizzard in New York and everything was slowed down and my mother was 7 months pregnant with me. She walked to her sister's house for Christmas. She said it was so much fun.
To me, the worst thing about snow is the weatherman’s ubiquitous use of the phrase “the white stuff”.
Angel shit
A phrase that gets about as depressing as the poor fellow living through countless Ground Hogs Days, in the movie of the same name.
I don't get it
I think cops use the same phrase lol!
I thought that was NKOTB...
Great video, very entertaining! As someone living in Winnipeg Manitoba (Winterpeg, Manitscoldout) I have to appreciate the folks to the south who don't have to deal with the severe weather that we do. -9F is fairly mild winter temps to us. We can hit -40 or colder in the winter here.
Hello fellow winnipeger! I can definitely agree that Winnipeg is no stranger to cold, but I'm originally from southwest ontario and the snow and blizzards there are way worse than the snow we get here! Lake effect squalls and snow bands dropping feet of snow in a few hours, ice storms knocking out power for days and causing ice quakes a whole different winter!
Although the last few years my family reports they've had very little snow 😢 dang climate change.
i went to winnipeg on vacation one summer. being a minnesotan i thought i knew all about cold weather. then i saw all the plug-ins outside the office buildings for cars.
@@davidkermes376 Huh??? I guarantee that people plug their cars in, in Minnesota. Because I have had to plug my vehicle in, in Minnesota, because of extreme low temperatures.
Manitoba's record low is -63, Minnesota's is -60, ND's is -60, etc.
We all get the same arctic air..
as a Minnesota resident I absolutely feel for you. Lived here my whole life but I hate it and can only imagine having to deal with winters after not growing up dealing with them. and I raise my visible glass to you good sir!
We got only a dusting of snow here in Portland. But the city is still immobilized because what we did get was ice. My car is currently covered by a 1/2" thick shell of ice. And though it warmed slightly over freezing this afternoon, all it did was make everything extra slippery. The shell of ice is still intact, and we're out of bread and milk. And I'm not going to risk my neck by walking out on it to get to the corner store. When the world is coated by ice, no one goes anywhere.
We have similar weather warnings here. So far, a bit of snow & that's all. Don't huddle in & embrace a bad mood. Embrace hot chocolate, cookies (biscuits), books, binge-watching good shows, movies, & (if you have the self-dicipline) projects you've been putting off...Doing cold weather right is an art. You just need more creativity! 😉
I was caught in Northern PA during the Blizzard of '93. That was quite the experience and, yes, I still love snow 🌨
I live in CNY and remember the Blizzard of '93 well. I was in a quilting class and that week's class naturally was cancelled. When we got back, EVERYBODY had finished their quilt since there was nothing else to do but sew and shovel. And shoveling gets old REALLY fast. But I'll still take blizzards over earthquakes. At least with blizzards there's a warning that it's on the way, so people can prepare.
Me and my family got snowed in our house for at least THREE DAYS during the blizzard of '93 in upstate NY. We were also living on a very rural farm so help wasn't anywhere close if we had needed it. I was only 8 so I don't really remember much, but I do remember it looking like Antarctica outside and I think my mom said the power went out at some point.
I also spent 16yrs in Alaska and saw some knarly blizzards
I was in grad school at Syracuse during the Blizzard of ‘93. That one was epic!
My son was 7. He'd heard me talk about the snow here in Central New York when I was a kid, how we'd get snowed in on the farm two or three times a winter for several days at a stretch. I don't think he really believed me until the Blizzard of '93. This year, though, I don't think we've gotten a foot total so far and it's melted several times. My snowdrops are blooming, the crocus are starting, and the grass is green...in February. Hope we don't have a drought this summer with no snowmelt!
@retriever19golden55 I remember the blizzard of '93. I grew up in Oswego, I was actually 7 that year, and we got snowed in for 3 days.
The climate is getting scarier and sadder every year 🥺
My first blizzard I was 3 and my uncle was driving us home from Peshtigo to Milwaukee. From the northernmost hwy in the US to just 90 miles north of Chicago in a Ford panel truck with no back seats. My cousin and I were sitting on bundles of newspaper.
It's too cold to blizzard like that out here in Colorado. Temperatures just last week got low enough overnight that we got Diamond Dust instead of snow a couple of nights.
Turns out -40 windchill does wonders for stopping any snow from accumulating.
It doesn’t have to be actively snowing to have a blizzard. Blizzard just means it’s blowing snow. I’ve seen high winds and white out blizzards with clear sunny skies.
@@GratefulEd907 Well yeah, I was just saying that it's often been too cold for it to be a 'dumps half a foot of snow in a few hours' blizzard. We had one windstorm a few weeks ago where before it started, we had a few inches of snow left from the previous snow, and after the blizzard, it had taken most of what was left and blown it away.
Actually, we had a blizzard with white out conditions Central Colorado in '90 that I remember super well. It was -32F before wind chill, couldn't see the neighbors 30 feet away and my Grandparents were visiting and staying in a motel a few miles away. I remember it extra well because it was my birthday and we were supposed to have school that day (first and only time ever on my birthday), and school was cancelled. Greatest birthday gift ever!
We've had many many blizzards, just not often the huge dumpers that the midwest and northeast get. Might get a couple feet, but it's mainly the white out conditions and cold temps that really make it. Actually had one a few years ago as well that dumped about 2.5 feet that I had to go out in to drive to my parents to take care of some stuff in their house during the blizzard. It couldn't wait, and it couldn't have been done before it either unfortunately. Times like that I extra love my SUV. When everyone's saying stay home if you can, and I have to go out and have no problems driving in the nastiest conditions (carefully and responsibly of course).
You don't know what winter is like until you've worked on the railroad. After digging my car out of the snow so I could get to work, I still had to enduce working out in the storm at the rail yard in the dark of night.
We'll finally be able to walk outside without stepping onto an ice rink today. Maybe. Our 7th day after the ice started. Made it to the mailbox yesterday, carefully. First delivery since it started. I'm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Not supposed to do this here. Every few years we actually have winter. Found our how steep the slope in the back yard was when my poor dog slid all the way to the back fence on 4" of solid ice and I couldn't get down to him. (66 and disabled. I tried and had to give up.) He got himself thru the fence into the neighbor's flatter yard and I laid a blanket down to give me traction to get to the fence for her to toss him over to me. Then I went inside to cancel the rescue squad who I had called (non-emergency number) after I failed to get to him. I had fallen once but I was ok. Grateful for good neighbors who love my dachshund. It's an awful feeling not to be able to rescue my own dog from my own tiny backyard. I could have slid down to him but then we'd both need rescuing. I put him on a long lead after our adventure. Had to use it to tug him out of slippery spots a couple times. When a dog built like a tank can't even walk across the lawn you know it's bad!
I live with a sister who lived in Chicago for 50 yrs. She was outside a few yrs ago knocking icicles off the eaves. WTH? They'll be gone in half an hour. In Oregon we only do that over our entries so we don't get dripped on. She was looking for someone to come plow our driveway yesterday morning. I talked her out of it. It was slush by mid afternoon. And I own a Jeep Grand Cherokee, if we can get to it, it can get us anywhere, carefully. She tends to fret and she was fretting. If I hadn't gone to get the mail she would have. She's fallen and broken bones 4 times in the last five years. KLUTZ ALERT! I don't want to nurse her thru any more broken bones. She is NOT a pleasant patient.
I'm so glad you're all right and you got your dog. ❤
One note:
Officially in the USA a blizzard doesn't require significant snow fall, merely blowing snow can be enough.
The snow aspect deals with Visibility, as Blizzards in the USA require significant wind speeds(35+mph) AND a visibility of jack shit for hours.
I've always felt there's something magical about weather that makes the out-doors instantly lethal. As a younger person I always felt like an intrepid space-man donning high-tech layers of protective garments to brave the harshness of OUTER SPACE. Now as a not-as-young person I just stay indoors.
Same. Having to work in similar conditions makes you hate winter in a new way lol.
This is so spot on. One thing I always love about those heavy snows, especially now, is the hushed quiet. No traffic or insects or birds or lawn equipment. Just these periods of soft quiet it feels so rare to experience day to day.
Woo Halloween as a kid! Do ya wanna be Fat Batman, Fat Doctor or Fat clown? Whatever you choose its gotta fit a snowsuit underneath.
I love this channel. Lawrence has answered so many questions that I had in the English language.
Lived through the blizzard on 1978 in Pittsburgh PA. It was epic. We had to dig ourselves out from the second story window and built an igloo in the back yard to keep our food in since we had no power for a long time. We slept in the top floor with a kerosene heater to stay warm. There was no school for a month.
In Michigan the weekend snow storm stopped most events. I went to work as if it was just another day. When I left the house it was 0 degrees and a foot of snow. When I returned 5 degrees and two feet of snow. This does not include windchill.
If you want a harrowing story of what a US blizzard can do, look up the story of Minnie Mae Freeman, and the Schoolchildren's Blizzard of 1888. It was commemorated in 1967 with a Venetian glass mural in the Nebraska State Capitol building
That was a unique blizzard. it was so powerful that it impacted as far east as New England. To this day, it's considered the worst blizzard to hit New England (although, we call it the Great Blizzard of 1888).
And that's saying something about it's power. Because it's competition includes the Blizzards of 1977 and 1978
@@andrewb1921That’s actually a common misconception (I used to think it too). The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard in the Midwest happened in January of 1888. The Great Blizzard of 1888 in the East was in March of 1888. A bad year for blizzards, yes, but not the same blizzard.
I live in Western NY and the snow here can get pretty dang rough. Thankfully I don't live in Buffalo.
Yea...we are getting a lot right now lol 62 inches out in hamburg already and expecting 1-3 more feet overnight lol
I do and we've been snowed in for days... and we have a driving ban!! We had 70 MPH winds last week and many, many people lost their power... I was one of them!!
Clevelands bad enough!! Only worse places are Chicago, Buffalo and Boston!! Well..nevermind the true northeadt, lol..
STAY WARM!!
Still dealing with plumbing damage on 1/20/24. -31 temps, frozen pipes, small pipes burst, no water, all that fixed BUT still waiting for 1/24/24 when the plumbers get here to fix my shower pipes. I'm very good at sponge baths as I had a lot of experience with those as a kid. It's 44 now, thank you very much!
When in Alaska, I keep a survival kit in the cars filled with spare blankets, excessive heavy socks, handwarmers, matches, hats, road flares, strobes, and some granola bars and jerky.
I live in Wisconsin and have similar anxiety around water getting into my basement. One thing that helps me is to shovel the snow away about a foot from the mall around the house. Its annoying but keeping water out makes me happy.
I wish I had the energy to try that but we got too much snow where I am in Michigan and it’s too cold right now. Between the basement, the ice dams in my gutters, and the 40 degree weather plus rain they’re calling for, next week could be very unpleasant for me. I hope you have better luck!
you only need to worry about that if your house isn't graded properly or you have no yard drainage. also you should have sump pumps.
Arthur looks so happy romping in the snow. How he has grown. All that was missing from this video was Kafka sitting in an upstairs window bemusedly looking down at the Arthur outside in the cold. 😻
It only hit 68F and sunny in Phoenix yesterday.I thought I was going to die a frigid death.
I love in Rochester NY and we get very cold and windy snow storms. We just dress in layers from Oct to April.
I live in Iowa and the blizzard just swept through here, along with the press for political crap.. tag you’re it!.
Yeah, I gotta start thinking about which ad free streaming service to purchase a couple months before the elections 🙄
Lived in NW Iowa for 6 years. Had blizzard warnings and ny fruend and I hunkered down around the wood stove. He had filled every container he could find with wood and brought it in. We only went out long enough to throw feed to the horse in the barn.
I grew up in the "snow belt" around the Great Lakes. I left as soon as I could.
Me tro
2:52 “exactly a few years ago, approximately” gave me goosebumps
After moving to Phoenix in the winter of 1973.(And that was a crap winter for the south) From upstate NY. My father has not tired of calling back or telling anyone who will listen: He never gets tired of shoveling Sunshine. 🌞 If they are smart when they see his name on caller ID they won't answer! I don't and I live in Phoenix. By the way don't worry about the BBQ grill the snow will melt before you will want to use it. Just saying. 🤷🏼♀️ Stay Warm!
Gotta love the -40F windchill, it's just lovely.
The struggle is real!
-A fellow glasses wearer
I’m in Wisconsin, and I was waiting for this video knowing you got the same winter storms we did. We actually got two, one on Tuesday that was heavy, sticky snow (great for snowmen but awful for narrow arborvitaes that bend over from the weight and stay bent if you don’t clean them right away, dropping all the snow on your own head). That was followed by the Friday storm. More snow but a little bit lighter.
Then we got the bitter cold and wind pulling snow drifts across rural roads and driveways faster than they can be plowed.
Neither me nor my car were particularly thrilled to have to go into work on that -11 morning. It’s supposed to poke above freezing this weekend and maybe even rain. I’m not looking forward to the ice slabs when that slop refreezes.
i remember 3 terrible storms in michigan. 1967 school was closed for a week and you couldn't see out the south windows of our house because snow was up to the roof. 1978 schools were closed for a week and as a policeman we only answered emergency calls.people donated their 4 wheel drive vehicles and we still got stuck. i had to call a road grader to get me out. these 2 were in flint. the last one was in sault ste marie. i don't remember the exact year, probably in the 90's. one weekend it snowed 60 inches. kind of a fluffy snow but 5 feet never less.
I'm watching this in northern Indiana, where we are currently enjoying a heat wave: it got all the way up to 20 F (-7 C) today and this afternoon I braved the cold to dig our cars out of the snow. Now I'm sitting comfortably with my little dog sleeping at my side, eating a bowl of ice cream.
Mmmmm... ice cream!
This polar vortex/acrtic blast is a hoot isnt it Laurence?
I was driving up to visit a Canadian friend one winter in the early 2000s and just past Grand Forks it started snowing so hard I got behind a semi truck and just followed them cause they were breaking the drifts for me. They closed the border crissing behind me and I ended up stuck in Winnipeg for a few extra days till the highways opened up again. Fun times.
Wyoming PBS has a special on RUclips about the Blizzard of 1949. Even in more "modern" times, a blizzard can have incredible impacts.
Albertan here. It's been -40 for the past week, and it's nothing out of the ordinary, it happens usually twicer per winter at least.
No one gets to stay home from work, we just get used to it. Life goes on.
I live in Ontario but have friends out west in Alberta. Been hearing about some of the crazy temperatures you've been having, but nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't get that cold here as often, but being from a rural area, when it snows, it snows.
I still remember one Christmas when I was really little and we had to creep slowly home from my grandmother's house, black ice all over the road and my POV out the window as I marked minivan after minivan what had slid off into ditches. Or the Valentine's Day where I thought going to the movies would be *fine* because it was supposed to stop snowing while we'd be in. Only to find out that after the snow came driving wind that unrelentingly kicked all that powder across the road, until there was little visibility and absolutely no stripes on the asphalt. When asked "What route should we take home?" I immediately said the one with the most evergreen trees next to the road: sure enough, they were the only thing that midigated the whiteout. Not even getting into the multiple storm related winter power outages that nearly did us. ...And now today after dealing with stupidity icy sidewalks because people don't know how to shovel properly (😡) I ask myself why on Earth do I still get excited about flurries and claim to love this season 💀 (The answer is because it's effing magical and there aren't any bugs flying in my face or heatstroke trying to boil me alive. Long live the snowy hellscape ❄️)
I just learned a new term this morning: Frost Quake. Happening in Chicago right now. It's when the ground gets so cold that the water table freezes, expands, and causes audible pops and cracks along with some modest seismic activity.
We are just coming off an ice storm here in Oregon. I love snow and we can and do get snow, but we get so many ice storms. Last big one in 2021, no heat or electricity for 10 days 😜
I have s pent most of my life here in Utah and can really empathize with that story about getting stuck in a blizzard on a long drive. My friend and I were heading back to college after thanksgiving and a storm that was supposed to be a minor snow storm turned into a massive blizzard. it turned a 2 1/2 trip into nearly a 9 hour trip.
I live in central Ohio and was supposed to go to the office today for the one day a month when my department does that. I woke up at 8 AM and saw that it was 6°F outside. I then proceeded to make the rational decision of going the heck back to sleep.
Thanks!
October 6th 2013 lives on in infamy in South Dakota. Winter Storm Atlas was bad enough to be named. In addition to dumping two feet of snow in the region, it killed half our cows and coincided with 13 tornadoes.
The last few days have been painfully cold here. Side note, when living in London, one morning we woke to about 1" of snow. Folks are not accustomed to snow in London, but it was nice to see how excited everyone was about it 😊
1" of snow in the UK and everything comes to a shuddering halt. Trains, airports, roads and motorways . No-one has the right footwear and broken arms, hips ect fill the A&E wards.
My nephew lives in Leesburg Virginia. Got 3 inches of snow a few days ago. He's from the Scranton PA area. "These people are insane. If there's WWIII it will start in winter. The country will be crippled by these clowns if there's a snow storm on top of it".
@@dp-sr1fdsounds like eastern North Carolina 😂 born in Kansas, but lived in New Hampshire for a while, been thru ice storms, blizzards etc, I giggle at the reactions of people here just because I am used to it but it’s no more than an inch or so😂
It's so cold in Florida I had to put pants on
🤣😂🤣😂🤣
As a fellow Floridian, I feel that. I had to get my hoodie out and wash it this winter, just in case. Total waste of time, I didn't need it.
1978 was famous for blizzards. I was a kid in CT when we got hit. No school for a week and we all made tunnel cities in the many feet of snow on our lawns.
I grew up on Long Island NY. I remember the blizzards as a kid. Come on down to coastal North Carolina. We are freezing to death when it dips into the 30s. We very rarely see snow. Plenty of rain and lovely hurricanes in the warmer months.
I googled Helsinki’s average weather and my hometown in north west Michigan’s average winter weather to get an idea of what it was like (I was watching a Finnish tv show). I was very disappointed when I read my hometown is on average colder than Helsinki and gets TWICE as much snow. I could move to Finland for a warm up. ☹