# Did New England winters come with huge amounts of snow in the 1950s & 60s?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-new-england-winters-come-with-huge-amounts-of-snow-in-the-1950s-60s/712433>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 12, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-new-england-winters-come-with-huge-amounts-of-snow-in-the-1950s-60s/712433 "2015-02-12T01:01:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-new-england-winters-come-with-huge-amounts-of-snow-in-the-1950s-60s/712433/41 "2015-02-14T19:12:13Z")

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> [@minor7flat5](#):
>
> [tangent]I just learned something new today!
> 
> I didn’t know that there were actually _two_ “Blizzard of '78” events.
> 
> People here are all talking about:  
> [The Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978) from 2/5-2/7/78
> 
> But I lived in Michigan and we went through:  
> [The Great Blizzard of 1978](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1978) from 1/25-1/27/78
> 
> And looking at the Midwest one I remember how we were all afraid our skin would freeze off. The snow was deep and my dad was stuck at work for a week, but the wind chill was the worst: “Wind chill values reached −60 °F (−51 °C) across much of Ohio” Definitely no school.
> 
> Wow. Two of them.  
> I guess I didn’t know because we were too busy digging ourselves out to worry about what was going on out East.  
> Now I wonder about those “I survived the Blizzard of '78” t-shirts my folks bought—which one were those actually made for…  
> [/tangent]

Aha! That makes sense. I was in Ohio in '78 and that’s the blizzard I remember. I see lots of talk about the '78 NE blizzard, and the details never seem to jive…

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-new-england-winters-come-with-huge-amounts-of-snow-in-the-1950s-60s/712433/42 "2015-02-14T19:34:53Z")

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[xkcd: Cold](http://xkcd.com/1321/) covers it nicely with real data even. Different city, but the facts in e.g. Boston are probably similar. Much of the difference is the persistence of snow vs. melting, not the absolute amount which fell.

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