Hi -

This is a picture of the 2-13-1983 Sunday Journal News (Rockland County newspaper) and I thought someone might remember, or find it of interest.

It was Friday night, and as my 4 yr old son and I sat for dinner, we were watching the snow fall. And what happened next was unbelievable. We saw a big commuter bus come through that small town, pretty unusual, it dropped off 3 ladies and a man (definitely not dressed for that weather) at the closed deli across the street. They were still there as we finished eating, all hundled together in a small doorway.

To make a long story short, the driver just pulled into town and booted them off at an out-of-order pay phone! He had told them he couldn't take them any further. We could tell they were in trouble and invited them in, to get out of the weather. Those were my struggling days and all I could offer was tea, toast and mac & cheese. The storm took out the electric and phone - but I had a gas stove and heat. What a night for them. Phones came back on later and they were able to call their families, but nobody was going anywhere until morning.

Back page...

My son enjoying the deep stuff...

Late that Friday afternoon with 12"+ on the ground in central NJ, and 18"+ on the ground in southern NJ through central Va, Rockland was only forecast to get 1-3" of snow and NYC 3-5". Along with the Lindsay snowstorm, these two events were the biggest positive snow busts I ever saw. Real old timers will tell you December 26, 1947 - which had snow flurries forecasted - was just as big or an even bigger positive snow bust. The Lindsay snowstorm may still take the cake though because it was supposed to be 2" of rain.

With the way the media is today and the Internet do you think something like the Lindsay bust can happen again?

I asked my Dad (84 yrs old) about the '47 storm... wow, his long term memory is phenomenal - he talked about all kinds people and places, he said it came out of nowhere. Mom said she'd look for photo's Dad took in Dobbs Ferry of the aftermath. It's a big "if", but if she finds them, I'll post 'em.

Models today would probably not miss the development of the secondary on the Lindsay storm. But what was amazing on the Lindsay storm is that even after temps dropped to 27 with much drier blowing and drifting snow, the NWS still held on to a change to rain. It seemed that everyone in NYC except the NWS knew the change to rain was dead and buried. There are a lot of people in that time that believe the NWS low balled snow totals because of how off their forecast was. Most places had 2-2.5" liquid, including Central Park. At around noon or 1pm when they finally gave up the change to rain a newscaster on WCBS said something that went like this:

"Well the official forecast has been revised and tells us what we all knew a long time ago, the snow will not change to rain."