My blizzard of ’78
It was about noon when I arose for the third time from a fitful sleep to peer out the bedroom window. Eight hours earlier I had predicted a heavy snowfall for Indianapolis and we had yet to receive a coating of snow.
My youthful colleague and I had been watching snow accumulating overnight in St. Louis. Our calculations put that heavy snow into central Indiana by midmorning. When I left the weather office at the International Airport for home I strained to spy a snow flake.
Unable to find sleep, I phoned the forecast team at the National Weather Service shortly before 3:00PM. It was not snowing. This had all the makings for a major bust! With no internet and no Weather Channel, all I had was the phone link back to the office.
Within the next hour the National Weather Service would release a statement announcing a Blizzard Warning for the entire state of Indiana. With all the drama his could voice convey, the radio announcer heralded the warning at 3:45PM, as I motored back home from the grocery store.
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Snow began accumulating rapidly as I left early for my scheduled midnight shift. Loaded with enough food for a couple of meals, I had failed to consider a change of clothes.
The story concludes some 60 plus hours later, after three nights stranded at the office. Details can be found on the Indianapolis NWS home page. Hard to believe that was thirty years ago. Clearly that’s the storm I know as the Storm of the Century.
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