I wasn’t directly affected, but one branch of my family lives primarily in the Cedar Rapids, IA area. On top of the 2020 derecho causing most of its damage there, in 2008, all the factors coincided and the Cedar River peaked ELEVEN FEET higher than the previously recorded flood stage.
I don’t remember the Blizzard of ‘78 but 2015 is seared into my memory
Some of the biggest storms of that winter included:
January 26-27: The Blizzard of 2015 – 24.6 inches
February 2: Groundhog Day Storm – 16.2 inches
February 7-9: Historic Nor’easter – 23.8 inches
February 14-15: Valentine’s Weekend Storm – 13.4 inches
….By the time the season was over, Boston had endured the snowiest winter on record
- Biloxi Mississippi…
I was only 4.
I was living in Washington state when Mount St. Helens erupted. It is currently the most economically destructive volcanic event in U.S. history.
I was living in Toronto for the blizzard of 1999:
From the item, in terms of record-setting for Toronto:
I remember those storms. The city was almost at a standstill. My work shut down for three days, which I was thankful for, as it was an hour away in good traffic on bare roads. If memory serves, the open-cut sections of the subway were shut down, because trains couldn’t get through the snow. Buses still ran … er, crawled, actually; but they kept going as best they could. All kinds of warnings on radio and TV that if you didn’t have to go out, please don’t. Somehow, we all made it through.
Northeast blackout of 2003, not 2023. I remember it clearly because when it happened we were driving with our 2 young kids from Toronto to the NYC area. Radio stations were reporting on it in dire tones and from the highway we could see long lines at gas stations. We found a motel along the way with a generator, an island of light in the gloom.
One of the bridges in Harrisburg has markings showing how high the Susquehanna was during various events, and Agnes is incredibly high.
I experienced Snowmageddon in December 2010. The biggest thing I remember is that Ms. P was out of the country visiting her brother and missed it. We go through winters with almost no snow in the DC area, so this one was a shock.
Oh that reminds me of the Ice Storm of ‘98, which was mostly Canada, but also northern New England, where I was
It was catastrophic for the area. I remember driving home from work and watching the powerlines pop one by one down the street. A wild storm that no Americans talk about still
I was in high school in Iowa when that happened. We had some great sunsets for weeks afterwards.
I was in Toronto at a Bay Street office building on the 68th floor when the power went out. Our team at work had an office party to attend at Yonge and Lawrence so we had to make our way 8+ km up Yonge Street with no subway running and with cars stuck in gridlock with no traffic lights. We walked about a third of the way before we could catch a cab. A memorable evening!
On a lighter note, I lived in Quincy, Illinois during the 00s, and one weekend evening, they were going to attempt a world record kazoo chorus in the town square - and they did! I didn’t participate, although IDR why. They had something like 4,000 people show up, and did a public-domain song everyone would know.
Here in NE Ohio I have experienced the 1978 blizzard, the record low -20F and the record high 108F and was outdoors for each of them.
When I was in college, we were in the middle of the second-longest losing streak in the history of college football. The game where we broke the streak (the team we beat became the new record-holder) was the only home game I ever missed. I had a term paper due that week.
I’m thinking of a family trip to the Big Island of Hawaii - some time in the 00s. Think it was xmas day. We wanted to hike down the Waipio Valley N of Hilo. It started raining - and kept raining. We hiked down to the beach and back in what we later heard was the record day’s rain. The switchback road was a river!
That was a beautiful event. I was a bit north of you at my in-laws’ house in Rockport, and it was the only true white Christmas in my life. So many people just stood outside in the cold and looked in amazement - “It’s sticking to the ground!”.
Growing up in Maryland I would think it more likely up there, but all we ever had was some occasional melting, left-over, ugly snow or a few flurries.
I was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who lived in the Louisville Kentucky area when they had their biggest snowstorm in recorded history. But, my story was a little unique.
I was working third shift (11 PM to 7AM) in a downtown skyscraper. I was the only person working (except for security guards) since it was nighttime and also the Martin Luther King holiday. The size of the snowfall was unexpected. The office would have been closed on Monday anyway. But, almost everyone couldn’t drive in this level of snow.
They got two other people to come in, so we had one person for each shift. They put us up in a downtown hotel that is walking disatance from the office and the office was closed almost all week.
So, the day was go to work, go to the hotel, sleep and go back to work.
I had to buy clothes and stuff at the hotel to live for a few days. The hotel was in a similar situation and they were short staffed, so I became friends for the week with some of the staff. I think it was Thursday before I could get out a little.
The Halloween Blizzard of 1991 in Duluth, MN:
It started on Halloween afternoon and ended on November 3. Snow fell at 2”/hour with 40 mph winds. In the end, we had 36.9’ of snow.
June 2012 Flood in Duluth, MN:
The week before, we had what seemed like never-ending rainstorms dropping 4” of rain. Then on June 19th we had another 4+”, June 20th 3+”, The zoo flooded, drowning some animals, and the polar bear was lifted right out of its enclosure, roads were demolished, and trees uprooted. Kids were jet skiing in the mall parking lot. It was called a 100 Year Flood.
I live in central New Hampshire.
The biggest disruption I witnessed first hand was the total eclipse from this past year. I do NOT live far enough North to experience the totality of it,
The eclipse itself was unremarkable.
What was disrupting was the chaos of people traveling North to view it and then leaving. Gas stations and convenience stores in the northern NH ran out of gas and even bottled drinks.
And traffic was the busiest I had ever seen. Interstate 93 which is bottlenecked in Franconia Notch to one lane each way had traffic backed for 4 hours–it usually only take 20 minutes at most to drive through it on a normal day.
It was the most chaotic experience I have personally witnessed-even compared to the ice storm and snow storms others above have mentioned.
Good one, I was in southern NH for that. I managed to get home early so I wasn’t stuck on Spaulding Turnpike which was a parking lot. I lost power but only for a short bit since I was near a main road. Friends who lived in more rural areas were without power for over a week.