I’ve always had this memory that winters were longer, snowier and colder when I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960s and 70s. I have a memory of snow covering the ground in late October, staying there all winter long, and then eventually the snow being washed away by the rains that came in April. It seems as if we were always shoveling snow. My dad had back problems, so I don’t recall seeing him shoveling snow. The shoveling was always done by my mother, Dave and I. There were winters that I was sure that we shoveled snow every day. To earn some money I would walk house to house offer to shovel snow for some small amount. On those days, I would come back into the house and get out of my wet clothes, wrap a blanket around myself and sit on top of the heat registers coming from the floor. Mom would make me hot chocolate and buttered toast. Over time, I thought that maybe I had embellished the amount of snow, so I decided to see how much snow actually did fall during my teenage years. The following is a table of snowfall year by year in Flint Michigan. Our town of Holly was 20 miles south of Flint, so the amount of snow recorded for Flint was close to the amount of snow that we received. According to this graph our ground was covered for the entire winter of at 1977-78 and 1979-80. It was likely even longer than that. The average date for the first measurable snowfall in Flint/Detroit is mid-November, a whole month before the technical start of winter. Here are some of the major winter snow/cold events of my teenage years: Thanksgiving weekend snowstorm of 1974 (National Weather Service report) A heavy, wet snowfall pounded southeastern Michigan on Sunday December 1, 1974 and Monday December 2, 1974, the weekend after Thanksgiving. When the storm was finished, 19.3 inches fell on Flint, making that the second heaviest snowfall of all time. Because the storm struck during the busiest weekend of the year for travelers, the impact and disruption was tremendous. This storm helped December 1974 become the second snowiest month ever recorded in Flint, with a total of 34.9 inches. I was a paper boy for the Flint Journal when this major snowstorm hit. Thanksgiving days required us to be out early to deliver the paper. That morning, my brother Dave, was sick. I brushed the snow off the stack of papers, brought them inside, and began stuffing advertising circulars into the center of the newspapers. I set some wood boxes on a sled and loaded up about 20 papers, or one-third of our total route. Thanksgiving newspapers were always the biggest of the year, and each paper had to be a few inches thick. Delivering was not as simple as just dropping the newspaper in the driveway. We had to walk to the door, take off our gloves, insert the paper between the outer storm door & the front door, quickly close the door, and not get the paper wet. That was the expectation of the publisher and the customers. My dad was of the feeling that the paper route was our responsibility. And, if we assumed that responsibility we were to do it ourselves come hell or deep snow. That particular day, the delivery was taking a long time. After 40 papers, I was really tired and cold. My legs were sore as I had to lift my leg with every step because the snow was so deep. I knew that my customers were likely getting agitated as it was getting toward mid-morning and one-third of my route still wasn’t done. To provide context, many people read their morning newspaper with their breakfast. Getting the newspaper was part of their morning ritual. Besides, this paper had the ads that helped them with their “Black Friday” shopping day. This was pre-internet by almost 30 years. As I was about to head home to pick-up the last bunch of papers, my Mom pulled up in our station wagon (pictured below on another bad snow day) I hopped in the car to warm up and I looked in the back and it was loaded up with all the rest of the newspapers. Mom drove me through the remainder of the route from house to house. When I got back in to warm up and gather more papers, she was singing Christmas songs. When we were done, she said, "Lets go home. Oh, and don’t tell Dad, this will be our little secret.” April 2 and 3, 1975 (National Weather Service) In the early morning hours on April 2, a messy mixture of sleet, snow and freezing rain began, accompanied by occasional bouts of thunder and lightning. Shortly after daybreak, Southeast Michigan began receiving heavy, wet snow. But, the storm was still intensifying rapidly, and by mid-afternoon heavy snow driven by strong northeast winds enveloped the area from Saginaw to Detroit, dropping the visibility to near zero. Snow piled up at the rate of an inch per hour, snarling traffic. Expressways were so clogged with the heavy, motorists were forced to abandon their cars. The snow continued through the night and into the morning of April 3. When it was done 17.2 inches fell on Flint, the second most in the history in that city. I was still a newspaper delivery boy when I clipped the front page of the Flint Journal below. It t seemed like one of those memorable moments. Besides, I was delivering that paper after the storm. Winter of 1976-77 (National Weather Service report) The winter of 1976-77 ranks as one of the coldest ever across lower Michigan. It began in December 1976 on the 16th when Flint recorded a record low -25 degrees. In fact, January 1977 ranks as the coldest month ever in Flint and Detroit, with an average temperature of 12.4 and 12.8 degrees, respectively. Remarkably, both Flint and Detroit failed to reach 32 degrees for 45 consecutive days, from December 26 to February 8. In October 1976, I bought my first car. It was an old Buick Wildcat with over 200,000 miles. The car seemed to always have problems. Just months after I bought the car the starter went out. It was January, and as can be seen from the temperatures above it was bitter cold. I didn’t have the money for someone else to work on my car. In fact, my dad taught us to do all the repairs ourselves. If we didn’t know how figure it out. We would go to the library, check-out a Chilton’s repair book for our car model and year, and read then read instructions. It was kind of like a recipe. I had to get the car running because I had to be able to get to work. My brother and I pushed the car up on ramps and I began changing the starter. It was well below zero, and it took me longer that I thought it would. I was laying on a piece of cardboard to keep some insulation against the cold of the ground as I was lying under the car to change the starter. The wind kept blowing the snow underneath the car and into my face. It was getting dark and the temperature dropped further. I got an extension cord and strung a hanging utility lamp under the car so I could see. I cut another piece of cardboard from a box and wedged it in the wheel well so I got some protection from the blowing snow. It was dark and cold, and the wind was blowing snow was banging the light back and forth under the car, making it difficult to see. I was reaching the end of my job and tightening some bolts when my ratchet wrench slipped and I banged my knuckles on the frame under the car. It really hurt, but all I could think of is that someday when I grow up, I want carport so I can get some cover from the elements. I also thought it sure would be nice to have a fireplace or a heat stove, so I could get warm. It didn’t even occur to me that I should have wished for a garage, or the money to take it to a mechanic. There was cold temperature, but then there was almost always wind chill temperatures that registered 10 to 15 degrees colder. It was then colder than cold. Most mornings, frost, ice or snow covered our cars. We got a bit innovative by heating a pot of boiling water on the stove and then taking it out and pouring it over the windshield of the car to clear the windows. Our cars also had a tough time starting. I would have to spray starter fluid into the carburetor to help the car start. Frequently, we would have to get the jumper cables out to “jump” the battery of one of our cars. The most comical time was when we had five cars parked in the driveway and in the lawn, and the only one that would start was the one parked all the way in, behind the others. We put the cars into neutral and pushed them one by one into the street, and then used the last car to jump the other four. And yes, we were the family with the cars littered all over the place. January 26 and 27, 1978 (National Weather Service report) The most extensive and very nearly the most severe blizzard in Michigan history raged throughout Thursday January 26, 1978 and into part of Friday January 27. Many people were hospitalized for exposure, mostly from homes that lost power and heat. About 100,000 cars were abandoned on Michigan highways, most of them in the southeast part of the state. Wind gusts were between 50 and 70 mph and the temperature with wind chill was between 30 and 50 below. The severe blizzard caused whiteouts and zero visibility for hours. As the storm passed over the northern Detroit suburbs, the atmospheric pressure fell to the third lowest ever recorded in the United States outside of a tropical storm. The below normal temperature departures of February 1978 were strikingly similar to that of January 1978. The bitter cold in February, caused the deep snow to linger until mid-April. Flint and Detroit’s average temperature of 19 degrees made it the fifth coldest winter on record. The January 1978 Blizzard was indeed the biggest single storm of the century to hit Michigan. I wasn’t out in this storm but I do recall images from TV and newspapers. The most vivid image was one of cars stuck on the I-75 freeway between Flint and Detroit. School was cancelled, but I still had to drive to work the next day. This was my senior year in high school and it seemed as if it snowed every day. I couldn’t afford snow tires, so driving snow covered streets was always iffy. Getting into our driveway was even sketchier as snow plows would pile the snow in front of it every day. I would take a guess at how many times I would have to take a run at our driveway to make it in. I would run at the driveway, get stuck and then back down the street to take another run. I would accelerate as fast as I could on the snow packed street and hit the snow piled in front of the driveway. It usually took two or three times to make it on the snowy days. We also had snow days for school. On days we received a lot of snow or ice we would listen to the radio for school closures. We had a lot of country roads in our school district so the likelihood of school being cancelled was pretty good. Our school district built five “snow” days into the calendar, so we had five days we could get off. Looking back, I felt like the cold Michigan winter settled deep into my bones in October. I felt cold all winter long. I recall that the snow covered the ground for what seemed like half of the year. I know now that was an exaggeration, but not by much. For many years, I told my kids that when I grew-up, I experienced more snow and colder temperatures than when they grew-up in Utah. As it turns out, it really was true.
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