Not like 1998

The rain changed to snow here in Canton around noon. That’s really a relief for people, like me, who remember the BIG Ice Storm of 1998. Then, it rained or sleeted for five straight says, wiping out trees, powerlines and modern conveniences for up to three weeks from in southeastern Ontario, the St. Lawrence Valley, and southern Quebec. It was  a storm of truly disastrous proportions.

January 1998. Five days of freezing rain. Ten thousand utility poles down. All power distribution lines disabled. Roads impassable. Trees snap with a sound like gunfire. Five counties in northern New York are brought to a standstill—almost.

But not quite. Overnight, volunteer shelters took in thousands of people whose homes were cold and dark. The National Guard lent a hand to fire departments, schools, churches and innumerable organizations mounting local relief efforts. Neighbors helped neighbors in a remarkable spontaneous generation of survival strategies, sharing food, fuel and comfort.

Find the complete NCPR one-year-later documentary, text and audio, here. We ran a piece of that this morning during The 8 O’clock Hour. Nora Flaherty’s got another excerpt coming on All Before Five.

So the snow is welcome, because it’s not rain or sleet. And Nora Flaherty has an encouraging look-ahead from  Andrew Loconto, meteorologist in Burlington. Basically, he says, this is no ice storm of ’98.

Yes, a temperature inversion is responsible for the freezing rain (cold at ground level, warmer at 5,000 feet), and he says there’ll be patchy rain, sleet or snow till later today. By tomorrow, he says, it should be snow. Then wind and dropping temperatures tomorrow afternoon.

Tags: weather