Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Late March Blizzard – 1947

The first day of Spring was a few days ago, so winter is technically over at last. But anything can happen in Northern Ohio, and just because it's spring doesn't mean we can't have some more winter weather.

That's what happened back in 1947 – 68 years ago today – when a blizzard struck Lorain on March 25, 1947. As the article from the front page of the Lorain Journal the next day noted, "Lorain today was gradually recovering from the effects of its worst blizzard in many years which struck with paralyzing force yesterday, and the weatherman promised it would be warmer tomorrow.

"Elsewhere in Lorain-co, however, schools remained closed today and traffic was still halted as workers continued efforts to dig out from the winter's heaviest snowfall.

"Similar tie-ups were reported thruout Northern Ohio, with 1,500 motor cars still stalled in snowdrifts in the Cleveland area, 8,000 made idle in Canton and interurban bus service suspended on some lines.

"Altho winds, which reached a velocity of 65 miles an hour yesterday, had abated today, most roads in central and southern Lorain-co were piled high with snowdrifts today. Only the Lake-rd, the Lorain-Elyria-rd and the Lorain-Amherst-rd were reported entirely open."

Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself this year.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I remember as a kid the big snow on March 31, 1987. There's a clip from Newscenter 8 WJW on YouTube reporting it.