Blizzard of '77

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Snow drifts made traffic difficult in parts of New York. (Photo taken on February 7, 1977).

The Blizzard of '77 or Great Lakes Blizzard was a meteorological event in North America . In this blizzard , the January 28, 1977 to February 1, with winds in hurricane force mainly Buffalo in the west of the State of York New and adjacent areas of New York and Ontario , Canada , covered with deep snow falls and towering snow drifts, were 29 People killed. Buffalo, the second largest city in New York State, had a population of 463,000 at the time and around two million people lived in the metropolitan area.

In western New York and southern Ontario, a blanket of snow had accumulated on the frozen Lake Erie and the surrounding plains, which provided sufficient material for the blizzard. Due to the strong winds of the blizzard, this snow was blown into high snowdrifts. The Lake Ontario was not frozen over, so that the north of New York did not have to contend with the drift of snow from the sea surface, but it fell significant snowfall by the lake effect , which also paralyzed in conjunction with the storm this area. In the hardest hit areas, snowmobiles became the only usable mode of transport.

Course of the winter of 1976–1977 to the blizzard

During the months before the blizzard, weather conditions had occurred that made the effects of the blizzard possible to the extent that it occurred later. From the fall of 1976 to January 1977 a high- amplitude planetary wave had built up that was very persistent from October 1976 and included a ridge over the west and a trough over the east of North America.

In January 1977 the strength of the back in the west and that of the trough in the east were much stronger than usual. A strong blocking high developed over the Arctic Ocean in January, and as a result, the polar vortex migrated further south than is normally found, to southern Canada. Strong northwest air currents between the ridge and the trough also caused northwest air currents in the area in between and carried cold arctic air into the Midwest and eastern United States. As a result, winter turned out to be colder than usual in large areas , with temperatures in the Ohio River valley being 8 ° F , four degrees Celsius lower than the long-term average. The cold winter was not limited to New England, however, because on January 20, 1977, snow fell for the first and only time in Miami , Florida . The Bahamas reported sleet.

Extreme winter before the blizzard

In the period from June to September 1976 the National Meteorological Service registered 408 mm of precipitation, making the summer significantly more humid than normal. The long-term mean between 1961 and 1990 is 363 mm of precipitation. The months before the blizzard had been determined by cold and snowy weather. In Cheektowaga , where the NWS Buffalo weather station is located, the first snowfall was observed on October 9, 1976.

Lake effect snow had occurred twice in western New York during the winter. Up to four inches fell on October 17th and 18th and a foot from October 21st to 22nd. On the last day in October 1976, the water temperature was of Lake Erie just 9  ° C . That was the lowest water temperature recorded at this point in time since measurements began. The NWS Buffalo measured 79.5 cm of snowfall for November. The average air temperature in November was 1.2 ° C, the lowest since 1880 and 3.2 ° C below normal. The first three weeks of November had been dry, with only 7.6 mm of rainfall recorded. At the end of November, however, larger amounts of snow fell, 48 cm on November 30th alone, in the south of Erie County even up to 120 cm.

December was also cold and snowy; the mean temperature of −5.6 ° C was about 3 ° C below the long-term mean, the daily snow cover measurements ranged from 5 to 66 cm. The monthly amount of snowfall reached a new record at 154.2 cm, and the highest snow cover was measured on December 2nd at 3:40 p.m. at 79 cm. The cold weather caused the shallow Lake Erie to cool to 0 ° C by December 14, 1976, the earliest recorded date on which this happened. At the end of December the lake was completely frozen over.

The average temperature in January was -10.1 ° C (about six degrees Celsius below normal), the lowest value since weather records began in Buffalo in 1870. On January 10, 1977, over a foot of fresh snow fell. The wind speeds of 95 km per hour created blizzard-like conditions.

From December 20, 1976 until the day of the blizzard, snowfall was measured every day with the exception of three days, and from November 29 onwards there was a continuous blanket of snow. The average annual snowfall in Buffalo is 250 cm. From the beginning of winter to the day before the blizzard on January 28, 1977, a total of 384.3 cm of snow had fallen - 150.1 cm of it in January 1977 - and the current snow cover on the day of the blizzard was 84 cm.

The blizzard in western New York

January 26th January 27th January 28th January 29th January 30th 31 January February 1st February 2nd
Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday

Before the blizzard

Even before the blizzard, the Niagara Mohawk Power Company warned that in some areas of western New York the snowpack was already reaching the power lines. The director of the Buffalo city cleaning department estimated at the beginning of the week that a fifth of the cars in the city were parked illegally or abandoned, which hindered snow removal, especially in the side streets, and sometimes made it impossible. Efforts were stepped up and the snow removal operation, including the necessary towing of obstructive vehicles, dubbed "Snow Blitz" by the press , made substantial progress on January 25-26. Around 960 parking tickets were distributed and 140 vehicles were towed away. Even so, many side streets in the city were practically impassable. On Wednesday evening, Wyoming , Cattaraugus , Allegany and Erie counties were hit by heavy gusts of snow combined with strong winds. That blizzard blocked Buffalo Skyway , Fuhrmann Boulevard (an arterial road to the southern suburbs) and many other roads, forcing clearance services to focus on primary and secondary main roads Wednesday night and Thursday. A number of motorists got stuck on Fuhrmann Boulevard and were rescued by the police and fire brigade during the night. The clearing of the snow that this blizzard brought was made difficult by strong winds. In one case on Thursday (January 27, 1977) a previously cleared road was filled in within an hour with snowdrifts more than 180 cm high. Some schools and factories as well as the Greater Buffalo International Airport were closed that day.

On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Stanley Makowski announced that Governor Hugh Carey had ordered units from the National Guard and the New York State Department of Transportation into town with equipment to help clear snow. Shortages in the supply of natural gas caused the governor to declare the fuel emergency for the state, and the National Fuel Gas Company restricted the supply of natural gas to industrial customers. Similar measures were taken by the governors of Minnesota , Tennessee , Ohio , Pennsylvania, and New Jersey .

Start of the blizzard

On Thursday, January 27, 1977, an Arctic cold front struck through the northern Great Plains towards the Midwest. Between six and seven in the morning on Friday, January 28, 1977, heavy snowfall had accompanied the cold front as it migrated over Indianapolis , Indiana , with the temperature falling by almost 25  ° F (approximately 14  ° C ). Between seven and eight in the morning, Columbus reported similar conditions in Ohio . Toledo and Cleveland , as well as Erie, were also hit by the cold front. The National Weather Service office in Erie warned of catastrophic traffic conditions and in fact over 500 road accidents occurred in Erie that morning.

Between midnight and eleven o'clock in the morning on January 28, the temperature at Buffalo Airport rose from −15 ° C to −3 ° C and around five in the morning snow had started. About two inches of fresh snow had fallen before the blizzard started. At four o'clock in the morning the weather service had warned that "again very strong winds will create blizzard-like conditions, starting late in the morning and continuing over night". At eleven o'clock a blizzard warning was issued. It was the first time the Buffalo National Weather Service office did this. Observers on the 16th floor of the M&T Building in Buffalo saw around 11:10 a.m. that a gray wall covered the city and was approaching. When it reached the building, it now appeared white and enveloped the building. A gust of wind made the building shake and the windows cracked into the frame.

Since the governor of New York State had already decided the previous day to deploy the National Guard and forces from the New York State Department of Transportation to help clear the snow in Buffalo, the latter had already arrived. A conference has been scheduled to coordinate the work. During this session, however, the town's snowplows returned to their garages because visibility was poor. Some of the snow plow crews reported that they could not see their own plow blades. By 11:30 a.m., most of the city workers had been sent home early, but very few made it to their homes.

Around the same time the white wall of snow reached the airport and the temperature fell at the same time. The wind speed increased to 47 km / h, gusts reached 79 km / h. Visibility dropped from 1.2 km previously to zero and remained unchanged until 12:50 the next day. In the first four hours after the blizzard started, the temperature at Buffalo Airport had dropped from −3 ° C to −18 ° C.

The snow depth grew rapidly and by 1 p.m. it was already "bumper height " . In some places, snow drifts reached a height of five meters by nightfall. The rapidly increasing depth of snow made many roads impassable, which happened in the districts of Buffalo near the lake within half an hour. In connection with the poor visibility due to the blowing snow, it was practically impossible to get from one place to another. The low temperatures and snow that penetrated the engine compartment of vehicles by the wind caused vehicle breakdowns. Pedestrians also had to struggle with problems from strong winds, poor visibility, deep snow and what felt like cold . Many were brought down by the strong wind and the deep snow made it difficult to get up. Human chains were formed at the Memorial Auditorium to bring passengers from broken-down cars to safety.

The area west of Buffalo, which was also hit by the cold front, had only been affected by snow for two to three hours, and it was believed that the same would apply to western New York state. In fact, the Buffalo weather radar showed virtually no snowfall at 1:30 p.m. It was clear that the strong wind was blowing the snow from the surface of the frozen Lake Erie. Since this was already frozen over in December, the heavy snowfalls had gathered there in January and at the beginning of the blizzard the ice surface was covered by "deep, powdery snow" . Since the unusually low temperatures in January had prevented the snow from thawing and re-freezing, the snow had remained powdery and had not bonded to the surface of the ice as usual. It could easily be blown away. The fresh snow and the snow blown by Lake Erie piled up to eight meters in the city of Buffalo, although in total only about thirty centimeters of fresh snow was measured during the few days of the blizzard and a large part of it was probably snow blown from the surface of Lake Erie be. The strong wind made it difficult to remove the shifted snow. He broke the crystals and created a solid, cement-like layer. The result was, among other things, that the usual methods of snow removal failed.

The worst conditions were in Buffalo in the late afternoon of January 28th, when the wind speed rose to an average of 40 knots (around 75 km / h) and the gusts reached up to 60 knots (around 110 km / h), increasing the perceived temperature Values ​​dropped between −50 ° C and −55 ° C. That night, people stayed wherever they could find shelter, hundreds of people stayed in public buildings. Authorities estimated that about 13,000 people were stuck in downtown Buffalo and similarly in the surrounding counties, with about 1,700 workers from Bell Aerosystems in Wheatfield and 2,500 from Harrison Radiator Company in Lockport stuck at the plants.

As many streets became impassable, the police were almost completely inoperable on Friday evening. Announcements on the radio and television called on citizens to lend the police snowmobiles and four-wheel drive vehicles. In some places shops, warehouses and apartments were looted , but mainly cigarettes , beer , brandy and meat from broken down delivery trucks.

When a fire broke out on Whitney Place on Virginia Street, the fire trucks had to drive their way between stuck cars, but couldn't get closer than two or three blocks to the fire, so long water hoses had to be laid. The National Guard brought firefighters to the scene in four-wheel drive vehicles. The weather conditions not only hindered the fire brigade on the way to the scene, but also impaired the extinguishing work. Freezing water, for example, burst the hoses. Since the gullies were heavily covered with snow, the extinguishing water could not drain and ran onto the street, where it finally froze due to the low temperatures. The fire brigade's hoses and pumps then had to be freed with pneumatic hammers . Some of the pumps stopped because the wind was blowing snow into the engine or because the fuel ran out. Due to their design, some of these pumps used the pumped fire-fighting water instead of cooling liquid for cooling, and therefore some were damaged by overheating because the cooling water froze. The fire was eventually extinguished, but by then six or seven houses had been destroyed by the spreading fire. About 50 people became homeless as a result. Virginia Street and Whitney Place had to remain closed for more than two weeks because it was previously not possible to free the vehicles stuck in the frozen fire fighting water.

Snowmobiles were often the only way to help trapped people, bring nurses, doctors, blood and medicine to hospitals, and move patients.

The Red Cross set up a total of eight emergency shelters in Erie County, which were provided with food and medicine by volunteers on snowmobiles. Snowmobiles have also been used to rescue passengers from broken-down vehicles on the skyway and other expressways.

On the airfield of Buffalo Airport in Cheektowaga , three planes were waiting for permission to take off when the blizzard reached the airport. One of them stood still for about five minutes because of the blizzard. During this time the nose wheel was frozen and stopped turning. It took several hours to get the three planes back to the terminal because it had to be done by radio - visibility was too poor for the pilots to see the men on the airfield who normally direct the plane to the gate.

Subsequent days

By midnight on January 28, 1977, it was estimated that more than 2,000 cars were stuck on Main Street and an additional 8,000 vehicles were stuck on other streets in Buffalo City. On the morning of January 29th, a Saturday, visibility improved and the city was able to send out its snow plows. The abandoned vehicles made it difficult to clear the snow, as these vehicles had to be removed from the streets by towing services . Initially, thirty tow trucks were in use, and finally fifty on Saturday afternoon. Police focused on the looting and by the evening of January 29th, 50 to 60 looters had been held in police custody.

For the first time in 143-year history, the Buffalo Courier-Express did not appear on Saturday and The Buffalo Evening News only printed 10,000 copies. The governor of New York had previously demanded a day that parts of New York State will be declared a disaster area, and said on Saturday President Jimmy Carter the state of emergency for the county Cattaraugus, Chautauqua , Erie and Niagara . During a brief storm break in the morning, a C-130 of the National Guard with its crew and equipment was able to land at the airport.

Temperatures on January 29th dropped to −22 ° C, breaking the old record for that date from 1885. The peak wind speeds were up to 82 km / h. During the afternoon the storm picked up again and new snowdrifts built up. The storm continued because the low pressure area associated with the cold front became stationary over James Bay before migrating back west and then moving east towards the maritime provinces .

President Carter named the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration director for Region II (Northeast) , Thomas Casey, as the United States federal government coordinator in charge of responding to the blizzard. Casey and Governor Hugh Carey arrived at Buffalo Airport on Sunday lunchtime on a C-130.

On Sunday, January 30th, the weather cleared up a little and the sun was shining a little at times. City government and New York State Department of Transportation snow plows have made some major roads passable. As a result, onlookers drove to Buffalo and when the weather conditions deteriorated again around 3:00 p.m., hundreds of vehicles got stuck, again blocking roads that had previously been cleared. During the day a peak gust of 93 km / h was measured at Buffalo Airport and at night the perceived cold reached a level of −40 ° C according to the calculation method used by the National Weather Service until 2001.

On Sunday evening, the units of the National Guard could finally begin their intended work, supporting the city cleaning service in clearing the access roads to the city's hospitals. Some of them had only been accessible since Friday evening by walking several blocks through deep snow.

Most cities in western New York have driving bans, such as Niagara Falls , Buffalo, and other places in Niagara County. Driving with snowmobiles was also partially banned after the driver of a snowmobile was injured in a collision with a chimney on the roof of a house. In Newstead , the use of emergency snowmobile trips had to be stopped because snowdrifts up to ten meters high brought the snowmobiles too close to electricity lines .

In Cheektowaga County, the fire department checked that the houses, which were covered with snow to the roof, were not freeze to death or suffocated. In Clarence , the fire brigade was authorized to confiscate fuel and thus prevent drivers from driving. In some places, snow drifts were so high that metal detectors were used to locate abandoned vehicles buried under the snow before heavy clearance equipment could be used.

On Monday, January 31, 1977 there was only light snowfall; the wind blew with varying strength and at times reached more than 65 km / h. A gust with a top speed of 74 km / h was measured at the airport. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority only had 20 buses instead of the usual 400, and these were reserved for urgently needed traffic. There had been no extra-urban bus services since Friday, Amtrak was not operating, and air traffic to and from Buffalo was suspended.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was involved on January 30th by FEMA in the effort to clear the streets of the snow masses. The USACE called its mission "Operation Snow Go 1977" and had its first contract partners on site on Monday morning. Tom Casey, the federal disaster coordinator, announced that 300 soldiers would be flown in by an engineer battalion to Fort Bragg , North Carolina to help clear the snow.

On the night of Monday to Tuesday, February 1, the police continued to search for broken-down cars in the snowdrifts. The wind grew stronger again; the gusts reached 80 km / h. On Tuesday morning, the Buffalo Mayor banned all non-essential traffic. Violations of the ban could result in fines of $ 500 or up to 90 days in prison. These severe penalties resulted in only 97 violations of the ban being recorded. At the request of Governor Carey, FEMA Disaster Coordinator Casey extended the state of emergency to Orleans , Genesee and Wyoming Counties in the west, and Jefferson and Lewis in upstate New York.

On Tuesday afternoon the wind subsided and only reached about 16 km / h, finally the sun came out. Also on Wednesday, February 2, 1977 the sun was partly shining. Mail delivery, which had been suspended in the city of Buffalo since Friday, was resumed with the help of six all-wheel drive vehicles brought in from Rochester . Carter Boulevard had meanwhile been cleared so that Freezer Queen's workers could go home. These had previously been cut off behind snow drifts up to five meters high since Thursday. In addition, many other important roads were completely cleared on February 2nd.

On Thursday morning, February 3, Buffalo’s Mayor Makowski lifted the driving ban, but without discussing this with the relevant authorities at the state or federal level, and many commuters drove into the city. Most of the parking spaces had not been cleared, however, and so drivers left their cars on the streets, narrowing four-lane roads to two-lane ones. The weather service had forecast snowfall again for Thursday. When this arrived and was accompanied by a strong wind, visibility conditions were again that were almost zero. Some areas reported worse conditions than on Friday at the start of the blizzard. Many roads in the south of Erie County, but also in the counties of Niagara, Chautauqua and Wyoming, were again impassable due to snow drifts and the driving ban came into effect again at midnight on Thursday evening.

On Friday morning (February 4), the NWS forecast that another storm would bring eight centimeters of fresh snow and strong winds early Saturday morning. This storm did not later hit Buffalo. Under pressure from various levels of government to declare the area a disaster area, President Carter sent his son and special adviser Margaret Constanza to the disaster area to assess the situation; both visited Buffalo, Lancaster and Cheektowaga. On Saturday, February 5, 1977, President Carter declared Cattaraugus , Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans, Wyoming, Jefferson, and Lewis counties a disaster area. This was the first time such a move had been made because of snowfall (although this became more common in later years). The previous declaration of the state of emergency had only led to the support of the local authorities in clearing snow by the federal authorities, but the declaration on the disaster area obliged the federal government to “extend the support to everything for the protection of life and property and any necessary material and equipment available to alleviate the emergency and restore normalcy in the area ” . The Disaster Area Declaration also enabled local governments to enter into contracts, which were then paid for by the federal government, directly with private contractors rather than going through the USACE's detour of contracting.

On Monday, February 7th, the driving ban that had been in place since Thursday evening was lifted. However, it was ordered that every passenger vehicle had to be manned by at least three occupants, and a speed limit of 20 miles per hour (32 km / h) was imposed on the urban area . At least a hundred people in Concord , Erie County, were still cut off from the outside world that Monday . Most schools and colleges in the west of the state reopened that day after closing since January 27, that is, seven consecutive school days. Since the declaration of the disaster area enabled the local authorities to award contracts directly that were paid for by the federal government, the Army Corps of Engineers was not assigned any new tasks from February 8, but ongoing activities were not completed until February 13 brought. The FEMA coordinator withdrew the National Guard forces on February 8th. On February 9, the city administration concluded agreements with private service providers for snow removal. This should continue for another nine days.

For the first time since December 25, the temperature rose above freezing on February 9, reaching 1 ° C. The mayor relaxed the regulation of the minimum number of people between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. On February 10, the mercury rose to 4 ° C and on the following three days to 5 ° C to 9 ° C. On February 11th, the driving ban in Buffalo was lifted completely, but the speed limit of 20 miles remained in place. The city schools reopened on Monday February 14th.

Summary

A house in Tonawanda, New York, is almost completely buried under the masses of snow (photo taken on January 30, 1977).

The strong wind made the snow compacted in such a way that the usual snow removal equipment proved ineffective and normal earthmoving machines such as backhoe loaders and wheel loaders had to be used. A member of the Army Corps of Engineers found that snow plows were ineffective on most roads in such conditions. A NWS meteorologist wrote in his report that forklifts were used on one of the roads near the weather bureau to break snow out of the solid snowpack. In some places the height of the snowdrifts reached ten meters. In Depew , a suburb of Buffalo, the volunteer fire brigade used an excavator to free the residents of a blown house. Due to the enormous snow drifts, it took a long time for the snow masses to be removed from the streets and parking lots. At the height of the crisis, commercial traffic to and from Buffalo had come to a complete standstill, including railroads . They use wheel loaders to clear the train stations and tracks from snow. This snow was loaded into open railroad cars and driven east from Conrail .

A total of 16 of the 25 cities in Erie County, including Buffalo, declared a state of emergency and temporarily banned non-essential traffic. USACE employed a total of 353 employees, including many from other branches. The district administration of the USACE in Buffalo paid 6.8 million dollars to a total of 216 private service providers, cleared the km in nine counties a total of 5,126 roads, with about one thousand vehicles and machines were used. In addition, there were around 700,000 US dollars for its own operations by the USACE. In addition, 500 soldiers from the National Guard, 320 airborne soldiers from the US Army, the 20th Engineer Brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina and 65-70 soldiers from the US Marines were deployed by the US Air Force supported.

The Salvation Army provided meals for up to 176,000 people and clothing for around 4,500 people, with up to 1,000 helpers on duty. The American Red Cross provided food in about 90 locations that was distributed to about 50,000 people.

According to the USACE, 23 people were killed in western New York State, eleven of them in Buffalo, seven more in the rest of Erie County, three in Wyoming County and one each in Niagara and Orleans Counties. At least nine of these victims were found dead in motor vehicles buried in the snow; the others died of heart attacks while shoveling snow or in traffic accidents. The National Weather Service puts the number of victims at 29. The economic damage caused by the blizzard and its aftermath was estimated by the Buffalo Area Chamber of Commerce for the area of ​​Erie and Niagara counties at 221,490,000 US dollars, this figure referring to the loss of wages during the five and a half day period ending on April 28 January has started. It is estimated that around $ 20 million was spent on snow removal. Some of the snow removal equipment was brought in from Colorado , New York City and Toronto . Although March 1977 was more than four degrees Celsius warmer than usual in the region, the snow did not melt abruptly, so there were no significant problems with flooding.

The blizzard in southern Ontario

Parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on the northern shore of Lake Erie were also hit by the blizzard. Due to the location on the edge of the frozen lake, conditions were practically similar to those in western New York during the blizzard in the south of the province. The worst conditions were apparently limited to a narrow strip that was more restricted to the lakeshore than was the case in western New York, two to three kilometers from the shore the conditions were already much better.

As in western New York, the blizzard arrived during the day on Friday and visibility dropped to zero. The strong wind and snow drifts made roads impassable here too and led to many vehicles getting stuck. Radios have been stolen from abandoned cars. On Friday night, 250 people were cut off at the International Nickel Company's factory in Port Colborne . Although school classes ended prematurely when meteorologists warned of the impending storm, the rapid approach of the blizzard meant that more than a thousand students in Port Colborne and Wainfleet had to spend the night in schools from Friday to Saturday - in the regional Municipality of Niagara more than two thousand students in total. Even on Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m., 800 students were unable to make their way home. They were taken home on Saturday with the help of the military, with some being temporarily housed in residential buildings in the neighborhood. In some areas, school buses were broken when attempts were made to take students home on Friday so they could take refuge in nearby houses.

In Ontario, too, snowmobiles and four-wheel drive vehicles have been used to transport relief supplies and the sick. Doctors and nurses were also brought to their missions on snowmobiles and Ontario Hydro workers . At Fort Erie , all six fire stations were using snowmobiles. Emergency radio by CB radio operators was used by the Niagara Police for communication. The radio station CHOW simplified communication, as callers were able to express their needs directly over the airwaves in a special broadcast.

The Canadian Armed Forces assisted under the direction of the police. In Port Colborne, for example, a battalion helped the army control broken-down vehicles and search for their occupants. 156 reservists and nine regular soldiers were deployed in disaster relief in Niagara Falls and St. Catharines . Local authorities sought help from the Regional Army on Saturday afternoon and the first 130-man unit was operational by the morning of January 30. The initial deployment orders were "Save lives, clear the main arteries into the Port Colborne and Fort Erie parishes, and attempt to defeat No. 3 Highway to open between Port Colborne and Fort Erie ” . The military also served in the area around London , Ontario with reserve soldiers and a 900-strong infantry unit. The conditions there were not too bad, so all-wheel drive vehicles were usually sufficient.

The areas hardest hit by the blizzard in Ontario included St. Catharines, Welland, Port Colborne, Fort Erie and Wainfleet, while Toronto and Hamilton were not as badly affected by the storm. The effects of the blizzard were particularly strong in the area around Wainfleet, and Long Beach in particular was hit very hard. A resident of Wainfleet reported that the storm crushed a window on the lake side of his home, quickly spreading the snow around his home, causing significant property damage. In the Lowbanks area, residents of a house were forced to burn their furniture in an open fireplace because the general energy supply failed. According to Ontario Hydro, some power outages lasted up to 72 hours, while on average power was restored after a day. The amount of snowdrifts in the hardest hit areas of Ontario was extreme. Snowmobilers reported that they drove over the roofs of houses that were blown over, without realizing their existence or over school buses that were buried in snow and whose roofs could not be seen. In the Long Beach area, the snow reached the electricity lines that people either stepped over or rolled under, and only the chimneys of the houses protruded from the snow. The Mayor of Wainfleet reported that snowdrifts on the bank reached heights of up to 14 meters and a military officer reported snowdrifts 10 to 12 meters high in Lowbanks, so that only the tower of a church rose from the snow. It was not until the first week of June before the last of these snow barriers completely melted at Cedar Bay.

The extreme depth of snow forced dairy farmers in Wainfleet to throw away milk because it could not be removed. There were also difficulties in providing the animals with food. The snow was difficult to remove with snow plows. A road on the lakeshore could not be cleared with a large wheel loader, but a small backhoe loader had to be used. This took two and a half days for a section of road about 270 m in length. A local resident said his home was cut off for 19 days before a snowplow finally arrived on February 14. One effect of the long, forced stays was that in the fall of 1977 there was a high local increase in the birth rate, around 18% in the Niagara region. (In New York's Erie County, the birth rate was only about three percent above normal, although the number of abortions had risen by 45% in late March / early April .)

The blizzard in northern New York

The northern parts of New York State, particularly Jefferson and Lewis counties, were also badly hit by the blizzard. On Friday, January 28, 1977, as the cold front that had previously passed through southern Ontario and western New York crossed northern New York, Watertown reported zero visibility and peak gusts of 45 km / h. In the Watertown region, the cold front produced 20–30 cm of fresh snow. Since Lake Ontario, unlike Lake Erie, was not frozen over and the atmospheric conditions were favorable for the creation of lake effect snow , the snowfall totaled 168 cm in Watertown and 182 cm in Mansville and 236 cm in Fort Drum . More than 250 cm of snowfall has been locally observed southeast of Watertown. The snow, combined with the wind, led to drifts of snow between five and ten meters high. As a result, more than 1000 drivers were trapped in the snow masses.

After the cold front passed Watertown on Friday, January 28th around 3:10 p.m., the wind peaked at 7:00 p.m. that evening at 79 km / h. Three radio speakers from medium wave transmitter 1410 WOTT were cut off in the transmitter building and worked eight-hour shifts to keep the radio station going around the clock. They played music non-stop for the next nine days and spoke to hundreds of callers from the surrounding area, who over the radio expressed their needs for fuel, food or even just encouragement. Jefferson County's deputies provided the radio makers with food on the fifth day of their involuntary overtime. More than 150 people were forcibly spent the night in a factory in Watertown. Radio amateurs set up an emergency radio broadcasting station in the factory to coordinate medical assistance and other needs. After a brief lull, the storm in Watertown started again on Saturday, January 29th at 2:30 p.m. and lasted until 10:00 p.m. The wind reached speeds of 80 km / h and brought heavy snowfalls with it. After that, the storm in Watertown subsided, but picked up again on Sunday, so that around 2 p.m. the visibility again dropped to zero. From Friday to midnight from Sunday to Monday, a total of 86 cm of fresh snow fell. On Monday, January 31st, another 43 cm fell before the snowfall finally stopped on Tuesday morning around 8:00 a.m.

Due to the lower wind speeds in comparison to western New York, the snow in the north of the state was not as compact as in the vicinity of Buffalo. Even so, northern New York also has significant snowfalls and drifts. On Tuesday, February 1st, Jefferson and Lewis Counties were among those additionally declared a state of emergency by FEMA; they were among the counties that President Carter declared a disaster area on February 5. USACE cleared about 720 km of roads in the two counties. US Marines who were in Fort Drum for winter training also helped out, as did the National Guard and the US Army.

As food and supplies were scarce towards the end of the storm, the driving ban was lifted on February 1 between 7:00 a.m. and noon. Around 1900 travelers who got stuck were able to leave the area. Agriculture was also badly damaged by the storm here. The dairy industry was hardest hit because the farmers could not sell their milk. In Jefferson County, for example, 85% of dairy farmers were forced to discard the milked milk because the milk tank trucks could not go to the farms for collection. The economic damage to agriculture has been estimated at $ 8 million. Other problems for farmers were stalls collapsing under the snow load, shortages in feed, the removal of faeces and problems in reaching the stalls for feeding. Five people lost their lives in the storm in northern New York. Four of them had a heart attack while shoveling snow, and another in his car.

On February 9, about a week after the end of the blizzard, the average snow cover in the 5000 km² catchment area of ​​the Black River , which includes Jefferson and Lewis Counties, was 102.5 cm (the equivalent of 205 mm of rain ). This raised fears of a flood. A site about 30 km west of Watertown, Sears Pond, reported a snowpack of 196 cm.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wagner, A. James, 1977a: Weather and Circulation of January 1977 — The Coldest Month on Record in the Ohio Valley. Monthly Weather Review , 105, 553-560.
  2. ^ Wagner, A. James, 1977b: The Record-Breaking Winter of 1976-1977. Weatherwise , (April 1978), 65-69.
  3. ^ Wagner, A. James, 1978: The Circulation and Weather of 1977. Weatherwise , (February 1978), 25 - ??.
  4. ↑ Schwartz 1977
  5. ↑ a b c d NWS Buffalo Office 2006c
  6. ^ Northeast Regional Climate Center 2006
  7. ^ A b c d e f O'Connell, Kevin, 1977: A Season to Remember. WBEN Inc., 28 pp.
  8. ↑ a b c NWS Buffalo Office 2006b
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz Bahr, Robert, 1980: The Blizzard . Prentice-Hall, Inc., ISBN 0-13-077842-7 .
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq US Army Corps of Engineers, 1977: Operation Snow Go 1977. US Army Engineer District, Buffalo, 38 pp.
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc Rossi, Erno, 1999: White Death: The Blizzard of '77 . Millennium Edition. Seventy Seven (77) Publishing, 356 pp., ISBN 0-920926-03-7 .
  12. ↑ a b c d e f g h i NWS Buffalo Office 2006a
  13. ^ NWS Buffalo Office 2006a; Bahr called 11:22 a.m., while the NWS said it was 11:35 a.m.
  14. ↑ a b c Dewey 1977
  15. ^ A b Wrightson, RA, 1977: The Wild Winter of 1976-77 in New York State. Weatherwise . 30 (April 1977). 70-75.
  16. ^ Method of the NWS until 2001; NWS Buffalo Office 2006a
  17. ^ NWS Buffalo Office 2006a
  18. ↑ a b USACE 1977, p. D-5 with the reproduction of an article from the Buffalo Courier-Express of February 12, 1977
  19. ↑ a b c USACE 1977, p. D-6 with a reproduction of an article from the Buffalo Courier-Express of February 12, 1977
  20. ↑ Both sources do not agree in terms of number and cost of assistance.
  21. ↑ USACE 1977, page D-8, reproducing an article from the Watertown Daily News of February 9, 1977

Further information

Commons : Blizzard of 1977  - collection of images, videos and audio files