I’m finding this really hard to search for online…
When people bitch about how much snow we’ve gotten this year, older people keep insisting that this winter is like the ones they remember from the 1950s and 1960s, with frequent snow storms with large amounts of snow like the ones we’ve had the past three weeks (since the last week of January we’ve gotten 6 feet already). Did New Hampshire and Massachusetts get massive amounts of snow all through the 50s and 60s, or is this more mythical walking up hills both ways in a blizzard stuff?
If anyone can google more efficiently than I can, towns where people got “huge” amounts of snow are alleged to include Taunton & Fall River, MA, and Concord, NH.
I already know Boston didn’t get snow amounts like that back then given the records they’ve just shattered…
I have wondered about that too and I have heard older people claim the same thing recently. The best that I can tell from what I have read, they are talking more about the consistent really cold temperatures that last for weeks or longer at a time more than snowfall amounts although they seem to exaggerate those as well.
It varies from place to place but most of the largest snowfall amounts in Eastern to Central Massachusetts have been in the last 20 years. There was the 1997 April Fool’s Day storm, the huge storm last year that also closed the whole state for the first time and the record-breaker for snow in a given period still happening now. The Blizzard of '78 is even too recent to be what they are referring to.
I am not that old and not originally from New England so I am not an expert on anything that happened in the region before 1995. What I gather is that winters used to be consistently cold and somewhat snowy back in the 50’s and 60’s but mostly without huge deluges of snow that are semi-common now. Combine that with cars that were terrible and dangerous in the snow if they even started at all combined with inferior snow removal equipment and an amalgam of memories and it makes some sense that they thought it was really bad even if the snow totals weren’t often that impressive.
I think this has more to do with peoples memories than the actual quantity. If you were around in the 50’s and 60’s 12 inchs of snow was pretty much paralyzing if you weren’t in an urban center. Without the snow removal equipment and fleet of vehicles used today it would bring everyone to a standstill for a few days. With what we have now 12 inches of snow we’ll be 80% in 12 hours and completely back to normal after 24 hours.
Guys I talk to in there 70’s and 80’s still use the blizzard of 78 as a measure of how bad things were. We know exactly what that entailed. If there where storms that impacted people more I’d think they’d be able to remember one of them as well.
Interesting. Of the storms listed, only the 1962 one can be one they’re thinking of considering the ages of those telling me about the storms they remember (people born between 1950 and 1960 mostly).
I think what is making this winter so tough is that we got 71" of snow within 17 days . I know the winter of 1978 was really bad b/c people still talk about it.
I was living California but my mom was living in New England. It’s hard to say if the winters in the 50’s were bad b/c I was little girl and the snow looked deep to me but it may not had been that deep.
The disaster that was the blizzard of '78 was mainly the result of bad timing, poor planning and the inadequacy of response from what I understand. The snowfall totals weren’t even all that high at about 27" compared to several much more recent storms. The main problem was that government and private businesses dumped people en masse onto the roads and created gridlock during a blizzard. Combine that with 70’s rear-wheel drive cars that had terrible snow performance and it just ended up in a huge snarl that made it impossible for the snow plows to get through. Tens of thousands of people got trapped on their route with no where to go. About 100 people died including at least 14 by carbon monoxide poisoning because they were trapped in their vehicle and desperately needed to stay somewhat warm despite being on major roads in a huge city. It was impossible for help to get to everyone. It took many days to clear all the abandoned cars, wrecks and fatalities.
A very similar thing happened a few years ago but on a much smaller scale. Many of people just abandoned their vehicles on major interstates like the Massachusetts Turnpike and just hiked to the nearest house to seek shelter. My wife at the time was caught up in it and could not get home despite four hours of trying. She barely made any progress at all so I just told her to divert to the nearest relative’s house closest to where she was and stay there for the night which she did.
Massachusetts has gotten much better about handling such snow emergencies since then. Almost complete state-wide road bans are an extreme option that have been used but they have also gotten employers to prioritize employees and let them go home in waves at the first real signs of a serious impending storm. Non-essential employees get to home early followed by the more essential ones a few hours later until your are only left with the most essential skeleton crew of emergency personnel. That is the most important thing because it keeps the roads from becoming overwhelmed and lets the plows make good progress. They can clear most major roads in almost any conditions in a just a few hours to make them passable to essential traffic in just a few hours as long as most traffic stays off of them.
The answer to the OP’s question is an unequivocal no.
The highest snowfall total for the season in Boston in the 50’s and 60’s was 63" in 1963-1964. It doesn’t even make the Top 10. 77-78 barely makes the Top 5.
But you can’t go by Boston, though. Boston regularly gets much less snow than the three other towns I listed, even within the past few weeks’ storms, and I doubt this is a new development.
The snow was deeper when I was a kid. The winters were longer and colder. It always rained more, and heat waves were hotter and longer and the humidity higher and there were more mosquitos. And everything cost a nickel.
The downside though was that to even make that nickle required at least three days work in the fields. Most years you got nothing because the only real crop was rocks which you can still see evidence of deep in the woods in the form of elaborate stone walls. Throughout the endless winter and short but brutal summer, the early colonists of the 1950’s and 60’s had to do everything they could just to survive. My hat goes off to them.
Maybe they do, but it is relative to the 50’s and 60’s in the same place, not Concord vs. Boston. Concord’s largest snow season from 1950 - 1970 was 74.7" in 51/52. 2007-2008 was 102", and who knows where this year will end up. The next highest total in the 50’s/60’s was 67/68 with 67.9", only good for 17th place (not counting this year.) This number was surpassed in 07/08, 08/09, 10/11, and that’s just counting since 2000.
Taunton and Fall River don’t have good records, but are within 50 miles of Boston and affected by the same weather systems.
BTW, Taunton gets barely half the annual snowfall of Boston, and Fall River gets 8" less than Boston.
Not to hijack the thread, but the storm was from February 6 through 8 of 1978 (I remember quite vividly because the 6th was my wife’s birthday). I worked in Boston and lived in Bellingham and commuted on the train to Franklin. First of all, there had been a 30" snow storm that hit Boston about 10-14 days earlier and the City of Boston was still having problems getting rid of the snow. By late morning on the 8th when the snow stopped we had between 55-58 inches of new snow at our house. The main problem with dealing with the storm was not lack of preparation but the fact that the nor’easter that accompanied the storm had flooded much of the coastline north of Boston from Revere down past Nahant and emergency services were devoted to dealing with the flooding. It really wasn’t until Tuesday that they were able to get that under control but it was still snowing.
The company I worked for closed the office around 10:00 AM when there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground. I arrived out in Franklin at 3:00 PM on the train and there was easily 12" of snow at that time. My wife had dropped me off at the station that morning and she couldn’t get out of our garage because the snow had drifted so much. I didn’t get to my house until after 8:00 PM with lots of time spent at the police stations in Franklin and Bellingham.
When the snow ended and they had plowed the cul-de-sac I lived on, I walked out of the house to the edge of the road where they had plowed and I was about 8-9 feet above the road.
I also seem to recall that it was not defined as a blizzard because the temperature throughout the storm was above 20 deg F (the winds were above blizzard levels)!
Well I grew up in Vermont in the 1960’s and I can assure you the cars started, the snow plows moved the snow off the roads, all of us kids were hustled out of the house and sent to school except for the worst of days, and many people came up on weekends to ski.
My anecdotal memories is that there was more snow and colder in the 1960’s and 70’s. Then less in the 1980’s and 1990’s and the early part of the 2000’s and now we swing back to more snow and colder. My brothers and sister agree with me.
I remember my parents were stuck in a rest stop in upstate New York (near Albany). This was somewhere around late 1960’s, the NY State Thruway became impassible and was shut down. The restaurant was pretty much out of supplies and everyone had to sleep on the floor.
But again, this sort of thing is one anecdote. Another point I remember from Toronto (not too far from New England) is that in the 60’s the accumulated snow piles from repeated plowing were significant. by the mid-80’s it seemed that between snowfalls temperatures got warm enough for a lot of the piles to shrink - that extra few degrees was probably the major difference in perception of total snow accumulation.
I don’t know about New England, but in Philadelphia we got a 27" storm in 1947. I think it came during Christmas break. My wife recalls the same storm in NYC.
The city’s reaction to snow was, it will melt. This worked reasonably well until the winter, I think it was 1959-60 when there were three major storms (more than 1’ each) a week apart with no melting in between. After that the city bought plows, declared snow emergency routes (no parking allow on them once the snow emergency was announced) and they started to take seriously the idea of snow removal.
Montreal really knows how to deal with snow. We average 100" a year (although to be sure, the largest fall in a 24 hour period ever recorded was 17") and the plows go out as soon as there is anything to plow. They also plow all sidewalks. Not only do they prefent numerous heart attacks, they also guarantee that you can walk around. I happened to be in the Boston area from Jan 23 to Jan 30 during two storms, one relatively modest and the second a 24" monstrosity and you simply could not walk anywhere. At least not in my son’t Boston suburb (Arlington). Sure homeowners are required to clear, but they don’t always and then what?
I would say a no but add a but. Going by family pictures from around the clan, it wasn’t so much that we got more snow as it is that it didn’t melt as often. Making piles along the street and in yards fairly impressive. My dad’s place often had a snowbank along the road almost level with the roof of his car from several accumulated days of snow. We’re PA but we had several winters where we didn’t see the grass from early January until late February. I figure the usual climate changes affecting the glaciers are what has ruined the great snowforts of my youth.
