The Upper Michigan Blizzard of 1938

I don't miss this one bit.
Deep snow

I looked and I didn't like it. Not something that I would want to experience. Good post.

I've seen pictures similar to that from down here in the lower in 36. In fact,I guess somebody posted one on fazebook just the other day,but the wife didn't download it and send it to me.

Thats incredible, sometime in the early 70's before '72 if I am correct, I was real young, we had snowstorms that pale in comparison to anything I can recall in recent times, even 3'-0" events, of course everything seems larger then. We had some kind of longer event, blizzard or whatever you call it. The town was cut off, the 2 lane state road was impassable, and all available equipment was either stuck or overwhelmed, state nor the town could do anything, particularly the section where the road was cut through 30' of rock, it filled in with snow, it was high, but I was too young to say how high. They called upon my father, to get his WWII era D7 out and clear the road, he punched through that drift, he plowed several miles with it, per what he told me where he turned around, was alomst 3 miles down the road, and then had to come back the same distance, that D7 started in cold weather like this because of the starting engine on it, I do believe I have one side of the paper work, he charge them for a few hours, and I think its the bill or receipt, one of which I cannot find, its a neat story, and I still have that D7 today, its part of this towns history. Nice to have a record of it, too bad no photos or none I am aware of.

I've never seen one like that but in the mid 60s we had one nearly as bad in Central MN.
Grandpa and Grandma were snowed in for most of a week till they could get a D6 cat in to clear the road by his house.
They still burned wood then and had plenty to eat
but grandpa did like his whiskey.
Dad made up a care package for them and we had a pair of Army surplus skis so I took about 20 lbs of stuff in a backpack over the snow to them.
Grandpa met me at the garage and rifled through the back pack and found the bottle Dad had put in there then sent me in to Grandma to deliver the rest of the items.
He had a real big grin on his face when he saw it was a quart.

The biggest snow dumps I remember are.....

12" dumped in Jan. 1992, 12" or so with heavy blowing/drifting---Dec. 2000, About 11" ---March 2003, Jan. 2014. This last dump was about 18". And of course the blizzard of 77/78. I remember the dates so well because I had to go to work and it is engrained into your memory. You never forgot driving in 12" deep snow. And Praying all the way there.
The 2003 event I did not go to work that day, I had drifts 16" deep.

1938 was way before I was born.

That was a little before my time. What I do remember was January '83. We had a snowstorm every weekend, each worse than the one before. We lost a number of radio towers in the amateur (ham) radio community from throughout central Michigan. One was a 180 foot repeater tower here. Folded it up like a carpenter's ruler. Broke guy wires that I couldn't beleive were possible to break. Snow drifts that took days to get cleaned up enough to make roads passible. Wife (a nurse) was marooned at the hospital for almost a week. Interestingly enough, I was reasearching that series of storms, and the weather bureau didn't classify them as blizzards. Sure were in my book!

That picture was taken in my local area. What I've heard about the 38 blizzard was that they received 30" of snow over a couple days time period along with the winds it created drifts 20 and 30 foot tall. People were trapped in their houses unless they were able to climb out 2nd story windows. Took forever to dig out with old equipment and in many cases hand powered shovels. Oddly enough the area only received 127 total inches that season. This season we are already over 200" and climbing.

Now a days 30" of snow in one day hardly slows us down UP here. Heck I remember 60" falling over a 3 day Fri-Sun weekend and the kids not even having Monday off school. The heavy equipment is much larger and more powerful. And there is lots more of it and lots more guys to operate it.

We had 36" in one shot in the 90's. It was just a small area about 15 miles by 25. They cleared snow on Otter Tail county 1 south of Fergus Falls with a dozer as well as a lot of the gravel roads in the area. Because of that storm the state passed the "stupid laws" making it illegal to be out on the roads if a country sheriff said no travel. We followed that with record amounts of snow and the flooding that spring that hit Grand Forks so bad.

Rick

that picture looks like the winter here
in NW PA of 1944. But also That year in early
March we were plowing... Not that I remember
anything of it , only pictures from grand
parents & my dad. I remember my Neighbor
telling me the story after he came home from
Germany & the war, why did his dad cut some
of the firewood trees off 7 ft from the ground.
His dad said he dug down in the snow to cut
those trees.

Well my friend, There sure were a lot of schools delayed two hours or closed this morning, in the area between you and me, and we had little to no snow in the area. Guess people have forgotten what winter can be like. Todays generation just doesn't know how to prepare for anything.
Loren, the Acg.

I had heard stories of people walking out their second story windows on the snow drifts, but I always discounted it as exaggerated! I lived in Marion South Dakota from '70 till '78. One winter, not sure which one, we had a blizzard where I could have walked out my second story window on the drift-my room was on the South side! There was enough room to back the cars out of the garage before the drift, then Dad could drive on the grass on the East and North sides to get to the road. We hired a farmer with a loader to move that one-but it was not a big deal, as once the street was clear we could get out!

The worst blizzard I've been involved with started Jan 10th 1975 and blew for three days. 18" or more of snow and wind up to 60 MPH gusts. It was hard as cement.I don't think anyone knew exactly how much snow we had in inches because it came down horizontally but 18-20 inches seems to be what they settled on. I remember walking to my neighbor's place a half mile away and having to step over the power line between the barn and yard pole. The road by us wasn't opened for a good week or more. We had an open winter up until then but after the blizzard the snow kept coming in 3-4 inch amounts with wind so the roads kept drifting shut. When the plow did go by we hurried into town to get supplies before it drifted shut again. It kept up this nonsense till the middle of march. The winter of 1978-79 was about like 75 only we didn't have the big blizzard, just lots of snow all winter long. A neighbor lost the mirrors on his struck going through one of the cuts in the snow on the road. We haven't had what we could call a really bad winter since then. Jim

I have a feeling it was before '36 that my Grandad talked about when it snowed, drifted, then Froze so hard that the Milk Cows walked over the fences here in Central Ohio..

Ron.

Early 60s(61-62)? in north central IA, they had 83" of snow and 32 below. I worked for my brother at Goldfield. We were snowed in a day and a half during all of that. That was when I was young and drank a lot.

March, 1965. Around 35-37 inches in central MN (Stearns Cty) MN HWY 55 was closed for three days, some county and township roads up to 3 weeks. Dairy farmers put milk in whatever containers they could find, even bath tubs, hoping not to dump before the milk trucks could get through.

I still have pics of it- Mom sent them to me when I was at Ft. Bragg, start of the SF training. Snow up to the eaves on a 12 foot shed. Their farm auction was scheduled for late March....they ended up listing everything for the farm buyer, and he bought it.

The one we had here in Jan 1975 was Super Bowl weekend. BIL in Metro had no idea what we went through....he just watched the game on TV. We were out of power for 17 hours, milked cows by hand.

Similar to the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard in MN...(google it)...weather changed so rapidly, caught people unaware, many died, trains stranded, etc.