1976 ice storm

The biggest ice storm I have ever seen in my life time happened in March 1976. I lived in Bay City at the time and I worked 2nd shift (3PM to 11:30 PM) before I went to work we were getting heavy snow and high winds. And it looked like we were going to get a blizzard. In fact, there was almost a foot of new snow on the ground as I drove into work that night. At that time, I had a 1969 Chevrolet Bel Air 327 stick shift. That was the best car I have ever owned for driving thru snow with (will tell you about the 1978 snow storm with that car at a later date) anyway getting back to the ice storm of 1976 shortly after I got to work the snow turned into freezing rain and it was not light rain it was heavy rain. and there were 35 to 45 MPH winds reported at Tri City airport (MBS) and that airport is some 15 miles from the Saginaw Bay but Bay City is much closer to the Bay. And I should point out that the temps were in the mid 20’s with this rain. The freezing rain continued and before our “lunch” time (7:30 PM) we had a full blown thunderstorm and that is when the power went out. Management told us we could go home if we wanted to but the roads were very bad and power lines and tress were falling ever where! So most of us just stayed at work. Back then all phones were land lines and for the most part they still worked and they let us call home to see if ever one there was all right and let our families know we were all right. Around 11PM the rain become light and many of us went out to our ice covered cars. The cars well over an inch of ice on them. And most people could not even get into their cars. I was able to get in the right back door and get my Chevy started. It took almost one hour for the ice melt on the front windshield. The side windows I got the front windows down enough to break the ice. The back window I did not deal with (remember no rear window defrosts back then. At just past 12:30 I started towards home. I live about 2 miles away and in my mind I can still hear the sound of the tress falling and hitting the ice on top of the snow. In fact you could walk on top of the snow and there was almost a foot of snow on the ground. Yes my trusty Chevy did make it home. At my house we did have power yet but after I got home a tree fell on one side of the house and came thru the roof. Here is a brief description of the event for Bay City both the snow and ice amounts are low.
1976 – A major snow and ice storm hit the Saginaw Valley and Thumb regions. The storm started on March 1 and continued through March 2. Snow fell first with anywhere from 2 to 10 inches. That was followed by about a half inch to one inch of glazing from the ice storm. The storm was accompanied with high winds. The storm struck a 29 county area in the central Lower Peninsula. This storm, one of the worst to ever hit the state, caused more than 56 million dollars in damage and widespread power outages for more than 400,000 electric customers. The storm impacts were so severe that a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration was granted for the 29 affected counties to assist in the recovery.
And in Saginaw here is an old 8mm from there on You tube
[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEJwnhIhvno” maxwidth=600 ]
Several days ago I mentioned that according to GRR NWS weather records the wettest February on record is 5.77” in 1898. But in looking at the daily records for February 1898 the dates of February 20/21 do not look right. I wrote the GRR NWS on this issue and here is a copy of their response.

James,

We noticed the same thing for Grand Rapids in 1898 too. We dug through the original paper forms for Grand Rapids, Lansing, Muskegon, and Kalamazoo and found that while there was a snowstorm around Feb 20-21 (about 9-12 inches), the 2.8″ water content reported at Grand Rapids is more than twice as much as much as what was reported elsewhere. With temperatures remaining below freezing for the duration of the snowstorm, it is suspicious to have 2.8″ of water content in 11″ of snow without sleet or freezing rain. It doesn’t appear sleet or freezing rain was a factor in the other cities’ reports. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We will probably disregard the Feb 1898 precip totals for Grand Rapids. Feb 1938 looks like a formidable record that we will be close to topping.

– NWS Grand Rapids

On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 12:09 PM, slimjom <Slimjim550@comcast.net> wrote:

I do a weather history blog and in doing so I do some research on past weather records with the amount of precipitation that has fallen the February so far here in Grand Rapids I looked up the records for past Februarys. In looking at the current record of 5.77” set in 1898 I seen that for that month 2.80” of that amount fell on February 20thand 21st and was broken down as 1.40” on each day with 5” of snow on the 20th and 6” on snow on the 21st for some reason I decided to see just how much precipitation fell at Muskegon and Lansing on the two days. Well I found out that on the same days at Muskegon 0.50” fell as 5” of snow on the 20th and a reported 0.10” fell as 1” of snow on the 21st while on the same dates over in Lansing 0.60” fell as 7” of snow on the 20th and 0.05” reportedly fell as 0.5” of snow on the 21st I have to question the validity of the 1898 record at Grand Rapids. As this will put 2018 at either the 2nd or 3 wettest February in Grand Rapids recorded history and we are still in range of being the wettest.
Thank you
Not sure if there will be any mention of it but this February should be in at least 2nd place in the all time February precip records 1938 is in 1st/2nd place with 5.30” and this year 2018 is in 2nd/3rd place with with 4.93” So February 2018 depending on how the NWS handles 1998 with go down as either the 2nd or 3rd wettest February in Grand Rapids recorded history.

Slim