Blizzard Of 1977 Hit Parts Of Western And Northern New York As Well As Southern Ontario
Areas south of Watertown including Adams Center, Adams, Mannsville, Rodman, Barnes Corners and many other small towns were hardest hit during the Blizzard of 1977. The photo above was taken in the town of Rutland on Highway 161 (aka the Tylerville Road) where it meets Cook Rd. and near the photo on County Rd. 161.
Note: some geographical coordinates, such as Google’s as used on this site, label this as part of Watertown, N.Y.
Blizzard of 1977 Facts And Figures
The Blizzard of 1977 occurred over the course of several days starting January 28, 1977, hitting Buffalo and Watertown NY areas as well as Southern Ontario.
Buffalo, which already had 28 consecutive snow days, received very little actual new snowfall, approximately a foot, most of the snow “falling” coming as a result of all the snow blowing off Lake Erie which had remained frozen over as of December 14, 1976. Prior to the start of the Blizzard of 1977 on January 28, Buffalo had already recorded just over 59 inches of snow.
Watertown and its surrounding areas just off Lake Ontario received anywhere from 60-120 new inches of snow with snowdrifts over 30 feet high in some areas. Lake Ontario is deeper than Lake Erie and never freezes over completely, making it the ideal machine for lake effect snow.
From a short Watertown Daily Times fact piece, “Blizzard at a Glance”, published Feb. 8, 1977:
- Five-foot to eight-foot snowfalls were commonplace in Jefferson and Lewis Counties.
- Gusts peaked at 53 miles an hour during 68 hours of powerful winds between 1 p.m. Friday, January 28, and 9 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31.
- Wind chill factor ranged from -35 to -47.
- Mountainous drifts scaled to 30 feet in rural sections, disabling plows in attempts to clear roads.
- Snowfall total was 66.5 inches in City of Watertown, raising January accumulation to 90.8 inches shattering previous record for a month of 79.4 inches in 1940. (Areas to the southeast of the city received over 100 inches of snow while Fort Drum received 93 inches).
- Total winter snowfall in Watertown reached 181.1 inches by end of storm.
- At least 2,000 persons were stranded, many of them for five to six days.
- Tons of milk were dumped by farmers as tanker trucks were unable to make daily pickups.
- Thousands of workers were idled for varying periods as the result of storm-imposed plant and other business shutdowns.
- Scores of communities were isolated, sealed off by blocked roads and by travel bans implemented under state-of-emergency declarations in Jefferson, Lewis, and for a while, St. Lawrence Counties.
The book, White Death, by Erno Rossi, M.A., chronicles the Blizzard of 1977 with a focus on Buffalo and Southern Ontario.
Click here to view more locations from the Blizzard of 1977.
1 Review on “Blizzard of 1977 – Cook Rd”
Our son, our 2nd child, was born the day before the blizzard struck the Rochester area (we were in Rochester General, I think). I think that was a Thursday, and the next day I was sitting in the room with my wife and son when as if someone had shut the sun off, it was dark. From what I could see, it was a strong snow storm which blocked the sun. Later that day the nurses came by wanting us to leave as soon as possible. We were ‘lucky’ because my wife’s best friend from college, lived right on rt 31 and it was open. So they graciously let us stay with them until the road from there to our house opened and we could get home. Our son went on to retire from the USAF while stationed in the DC area where he currently lives with his family.
While I was at Dry Hill, 1962-1964 we had a bad storm hit the area dumping I think it was 57 inches in the one snowfall. We were snowed in and a snow blower had to be brought in from Syracuse to get us out. The road from rt 11 up the hill was steep and the regular plow, which we could hear when it would start up the hill could not get through because of the depth. I worked in the ground-to-air building about 1/2 mile from front gate so it was decided that the 2 of us working that night would need to stay there until a relief crew could snowshoe down and we would use them to get back to the base. The snow blower cleared the road for us and we could get to Watertown after 2 days – seemed longer then….