Have you ever gotten some sort of memento that represents a significant event in history or a location that’s significant to you? If you go back far enough, you might remember bumper stickers that said something like “I’ve been to…” and you can fill in the blank…maybe Wall Drug, or Lookout Mountain. Maybe, like me, you’ve participated in some event, like a New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge I once did…or maybe I should say that I did ONCE (not as in the Sheboyganese sense of “once hey, enso?”), but rather to say that I only did it once, and that was plenty. I only wanted to be able to say that I did it, and I do have a T-shirt to prove it.
It wasn’t the same winter as my plunge, but there was one winter so severe that somebody around here made t-shirts that said “I survived the winter of 1978-79”. If you were around for it, you probably remember it. It’s the stuff that makes for those stories that are told to children by Grandpa during the holidays.
As I recall it, December wasn’t anything special weather-wise. Like this year, it was pretty easy to live with. But the real events started on New Year’s Eve when somewhere between a foot and 16 inches of snow fell on Sheboygan. Not willing to be deterred by lack of navigable roadways, I chose to hike the 2-miles from my home to the New Year’s Eve party that I’d been invited to. I can say that it was a much longer walk home than getting there. Being the resident weather nut, I noted that it had also fallen below the freezing mark before the clock struck midnight, not knowing at the time that the bells would also ring in one of the most intense stretches of severe winter weather on record for this area.
Anyone waiting for a break from the tundra-like conditions that followed was in for a test of patience, as temperatures refused to break the freezing mark, allowing snowfall after snowfall to gradually build to an unmanageable extent. With no melting occurring, some 80+ inches of snowfall compressed and eventually built up to depths of over 3-feet on the ground. Part of that fell during a January Blizzard that smothered the entire Midwest under massive drifts and brutal arctic cold. “Massive’ meaning drifts that made the roof available to the local rabbits that left their tracks up there …and yeah, cold…viciously cold, and for weeks at a time.
The Author’s Brother, Gary, Next to Snow Shoveled (no snow blower) From Driveway in Winter of 1978-79. Photo by Kevin Zimmermann
Eventually the Sheboygan Department of Public Works ran out of time and facilities to remove and relocate all the snow, and parking had to be restricted to one side of the street city-wide in order to maintain safe lanes of travel and emergency access. It seemed the winter would never end, but it couldn’t hold on forever.
Snow-Choked Mayflower Avenue During Winter of 1978-79. Photo by Kevin Zimmermann
Sometime after the arrival of March, temperatures finally broke through the freezing mark, but snow would be slow to recede and was recorded on the ground for more than 100 consecutive days in many locations, nearly 1/3 of the entire year.
The Winter of 1978-79 stands as a measure of how bad winter can be around here. And so if, during these holidays, Grandpa starts telling the family how nobody these days has any idea how bad winter can be around here, know that it’s not a tall tale…and be thankful that it’s not a tale that comes true every holiday season.
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