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Historic January 30, 1966 storm


Chinook
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Several significant weather features came together for a large storm in the Mid-Atlantic area on January 30, 1966. This was a strong phasing situation, that is, a combination of troughs at 500mb. The western lobe of the polar vortex was over the Great Lakes and then dropped in to the Mid-Atlantic, combining with a southern disturbance, which looks like a smaller bump in the 500mb plot. The southern disturbance carried most of the moisture northward. The large divergence at the jet stream level helped to intensify the surface low coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. The low pressure went east of Washington DC and moved northward to Vermont at about 975 mb. On one of the maps posted below, you can see that a combination of multiple events gave over 30" to central Virginia and Maryland within Jan. 20th- Feb 2nd. Lake effect snow under the polar vortex went nuts later in the storm and gave Oswego NY, 60" to 100" a lot coming on January 31st-February 1st.

January 30th official NWS Analysis

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http://greatlakes.salsite.com/maps/jan2931_1966_500_loop.gif

http://greatlakes.salsite.com/maps/jan2931_1966_sfc_loop.gif

http://greatlakes.salsite.com/Phasing/1960s/Jan_29_1966/500mb_speed_loop.html

http://greatlakes.salsite.com/maps/jan2931_1966_850_loop.gif

 

 

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my_surface_loop2.gif

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On 1/24/2022 at 9:54 PM, leesburg 04 said:

Yep I was born a little early September 1966

One of my sisters was born Feb '66. Don't know the exact day my mom was driven to Providence hospital in NE, but I believe it was at least a day earlier, basically the day or 2 after the storm hit. She always said they were about the only car on the road. My (Canadian) Dad probably drove his mighty 1960 Rambler. Hardly had power to get out of it's own way, but seemed unstoppable in snow; proven in several upstate NY winters. I'm sure we got off school, but can't remember how many days. Drifts formed on lee side of houses. Quite unusual for our area, even during the snowy '60s.

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Those accumulated snow maps don't come close to what fell in my neighborhood in the White Oak area of Silver Spring. We had drifts of at least 8 feet, blocking a neighbor's front door all the way up to their front porch roof and lots of 3-4 foot drifts. Not sure how 10-15 inches would have made that possible, even given the prior snowfall.

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I’ve never heard of this storm and I’m surprised my parents had never mentioned it.  They were both living/working in DC at the time.  How is this not in the top 10 storms of DC?  I know the DC has a snow hole, but the cutoff couldn’t have been that different if people were experiencing this in Silver Spring! 

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I had just started working at a grocery store in Kensington. I had also just earned my drivers license. I remember the start of the storm and having no trouble driving the one mile home. I was due in at 4 am to unload the weekly truck and no one else showed up. At 8 am we usually changed clothing and opened the front doors for customers. I was naive enough to let the few in and opened a register. Around noon the manager showed up having walked about two miles and upon seeing the lights on and me manning a register he let out with a “how the hell did you get in here”?

He made the decision to lock up the store so I headed south on Connecticut Ave which was down to one passable lane, made a hard right into my neighborhood, left the car next to what felt like a curb, and walked home.

Four years later, after Vietnam and such, I was hired by the police department and heard stories from old timers about this snowstorm. One guy, a veteran of Guadalcanal, said that the chief ordered two officers to respond to the upper county fire stations and they lived there for the duration. One officer said he didn’t go home for six days and responded to emergency calls on a fire truck. The upper parts of Montgomery County were particularly hard hit because of the northwest winds that kept over drifting the north-south roads.

 

 

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16 hours ago, JayT said:

I had just started working at a grocery store in Kensington. I had also just earned my drivers license. I remember the start of the storm and having no trouble driving the one mile home. I was due in at 4 am to unload the weekly truck and no one else showed up. At 8 am we usually changed clothing and opened the front doors for customers. I was naive enough to let the few in and opened a register. Around noon the manager showed up having walked about two miles and upon seeing the lights on and me manning a register he let out with a “how the hell did you get in here”?

He made the decision to lock up the store so I headed south on Connecticut Ave which was down to one passable lane, made a hard right into my neighborhood, left the car next to what felt like a curb, and walked home.

Four years later, after Vietnam and such, I was hired by the police department and heard stories from old timers about this snowstorm. One guy, a veteran of Guadalcanal, said that the chief ordered two officers to respond to the upper county fire stations and they lived there for the duration. One officer said he didn’t go home for six days and responded to emergency calls on a fire truck. The upper parts of Montgomery County were particularly hard hit because of the northwest winds that kept over drifting the north-south roads.

 

 

Thanks for your great recollection. (I hope our youngsters will get to read it). 
It may be hard for readers to know how different MoCo was in 1966. The (3 lane) Beltway was only a few years old, and all these multi-lane highways were just 2-lane connectors traveling through farms and forests. 

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