What storm do you remember most?

[maple flats]

For me it was the blizzard of 66. I was home on Christmas break from college and I went on a campout with my boy scout troop, of which I was an assistant scoutmaster. We took it easy, which was not our norm, and we had a cabin to stay in, real hard to heat but none the less it was a cabin. One the afternoon of our first night we started getting lots of snow, so some of the scouts made snow shelters to sleep in. They were warmer for sure. We were at a scout camp that was on a fairly steep hill, maybe about 30%, but at any rate, thru the trees we could see the road and where our cars were parked from near the cabin. It wasn't long before we could see the road but could no longer see the cars, not even the bumps they should have made in the snow. At that point the scoutmaster decided it safer if we packed up and went home, before a snow plow made one or more of our cars (none of us had 4x4 trucks back then). We were only about 25 miles away from homer but the roads were so bad it took us over 2 hours to get there.
Then next day I awoke at home to look out and see snow up above the window sills on the house and with the cellar those 1st floor sills were about 5.5' off the ground. We had over 6' of snow, but being a blizzard it was not uniform depth. We did have phone service so I called my fiance (now my wife) and then I decided I'd cross country ski up (on an old pair of military surplus skies) and see her. The main state road which ran behind our house had not yet been plowed, so I had the road to myself as I skied up to see her. I at times was looking down on the electric wires that ran beside the road (the poles were set part way down the hill on the side of the road, but at any rate it seemed strange. When I got to my fiance's house about 4 miles away (I lived 2.5 miles out of town and she was in town) I had seen no roads that were plowed yet and it was late morning by then.
My fiance's mother wanted us to go to a mom & pop store for a small list of necessities so she put on her official cross country skiis and me on my surplus skiis, and we went the roughly 2 miles to the store. We got what we needed and returned to her house carrying a single paper sack full. Then I had to carry the bag in one arm and drag one ski pole with that hand while using the other ski pole to help keep me steady. The store was in a flat area and about 3/4 of way was flat. However my fiance lived on a moderately steep hill (my current home is at the bottom of that same hill). The snow plows tried the next day to get up the hill, but kept having to back up, they finally quit for the day. The next day they brought an old 4x4 Walters with a V plow on it (and it sounded like it had no muffler). They kept ramming into the snow drifts but progress was slow. Smart me, I went out and suggested they go around and plow on the way down, but they told me they couldn't because if they got stuck going down they had no equipment big enough to pull them out. This hill was about 3/4 mile, bottom to top. I don't know how long they took to reach 1/3 up where my fiance's home was, but they spend something like 2 hours getting from there to the top. They would ram it with the Walters, then try to back up, sometimes they could, other times they had to hook a long chain onto a 6 wheel dump truck with the outer tire on each side removed, chains on the remaining ones and about 2/3 full of sand for weight. Once they managed to get to the top, a 6 wheel dump truck with road and wing plow came down the hill. He had the plow down but the wing was up so it moved the top over but left about 4' deep where the bottom of the wing cleared. Doing that, in fairly short time they had 1 lane opened and they left for the day. The next day it was widened to a narrow 2 lanes, but 2 cars could get by each other slowly.
The final reported snowfall for the blizzard of 66 for us was 71", but just over an hour north west, in Oswego (On the south east shore of Lake Ontario) had 95".
I've been in other blizzards but none to equal or exceed that one.

[Homestead Maple]

March of 2001..........33 inches of heavy, wet, wind driven snow that left 8 " of snow packed on the northeast side of each tree and I hadn't tapped yet. Lots of small trees bent over from the wet snow, laying on lines. One other March we had two storms back to back... 24" and 30" but it was dry snow.

[Paddymountain]

Hey Dave:
I remember the storm of 1966! I was just telling my daughter yesterday. Here in Central Pa ,we rented a farmhouse out back of town. I was about 9 years old but vividly remember the
grader with the V plow blowing through a 10 foot drift on our farm lane. The neighbor brought his milk cans across the field on the back of his tractor to be picked up by the milk truck.
Just thinking as I type about milk cans, sounds pretty antiquated, but I'm sure all the old timers remember them. Anyway, don't know how much we were off school or anything
but sure remember the grader!!!!

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

I remember '66 and '76 both well but up north here we did not have the same accumulations you guys in the snow belt had. The winter storm I remember most vividly was the ice storm of '98. We were 20 days without power. Ran a tractor generator for 11 days and then had a military loaner for the last 9. The reservists were giving me directions on how to shut it down and restart it when I refueled. I pretended to listen with no intention of shutting the thing down at all. Just kept pouring 5 gallon jugs of diesel into it every morning. When anyone complains about the cost of electricity, I am liable to retort "try generating your own"

[SPILEDRIVER]

don't remember 66 I was in diapers....remember the very tip of our 65 chevy belairs antenna sticking out of the snow in our front yard in 76 as well as walking across the roof of our 10 ft high chicken coop...having to plow our road out downhill with the big tractors because the plow trucks couldn't plow up hill in 93 we also had a barn roof collapse in that one..ill remember this one because I stuck a yardstick on my car hood yesterday morning when it said 10 inchs and got up this morning and it was at 31 inchs and my newest grand daughter spent the nite playing with pop pop in front of the pellet stove.....ive seen a few storms but none of them compare to the hurricanes I road threw off the atlantic coast several times in the navy....it will blow your mind when you look up at a wave from the flight deck of a carrier

[DrTimPerkins]

I remember the storm of 1966!

I don't recall if it was that year or not (I was pretty young at the time), but one of those storms sticks in my mind because my father, who worked on the VT Highway crew most of his adult life, was gone for a few days plowing out roads in Massachusetts because they got totally overwhelmed by snow. Some of my earliest memories are of going out on night patrol with him plowing....got to stay up late and drink coffee (more cream and sugar cubes than coffee) and eat donuts for as long as I could stay awake.

[Paddymountain]

Yeah, I used to plow for the township, my daughter would make French Onion soup and it would sit on the cookstove
all day and all night. Come in from plowing, coffee and soup! Still call it snow plow soup.
The cocker spaniel spent many a night riding around, she never complained, she loved riding.

[red dorakeen]

The ice storm in the late 90's when I lived in Maine.

Power was out for 10 days and for three days sounds of trees falling apart in the woods.

I lived about a half mile off the the road and spent most of a day clearing trees and branches from my road. The next day more had fallen. Looked like I hadn't done a thing.

[DrTimPerkins]

The ice storm in the late 90's when I lived in Maine.

January 1998. Wiped out a bunch of tubing systems. After the ice took down the tubing systems and trees/branches we had a foot of snow fall on top of it, making clean-up a real PITA. Many sugarmakers weren't able to produce in the spring of 1998. UVM PMRC wasn't hit bad fortunately (high enough in elevation that it was all snow). Fortunately the next few growing seasons were good, so the trees recovered fairly well.

[Burnt sap]

Hands down the Ice storm of 1998! Lost power for 31 days Every power pole and line down for 25 miles almost 100% of all trees were damaged 15 people lost their lives and Fire and EMS and power companies as far away as South Carolina came to help us. Not a fun time!