‘Invincible’ summer lies under the snow

Randi Kreiss

I don’t know how they do it, but the prognosticators at the Farmers’ Almanac were right again this winter. Back in August, they predicted a winter of “numbing cold” and “record-breaking” snow.

In their words, “It’s going to be very, very cold, very, very frigid, with a lot of snow.” Not highfalutin’ language, but that about says it, doesn’t it? The people at the Almanac say they base their predictions on analyses of sun spots, planetary positions and the phases of the moon.

The National Weather Service, which bases its forecasts on the most advanced meteorological technology, pretty much got the winter all wrong. Its scientists said that an El Nino would create a milder-than-average winter. And neither agency can hold a candle to my mother, whose knees told her back in October that a bad winter was coming.

We will remember the snows of 2010, but there have been other memorable snowstorms and blizzards. Remember the Great Snow of 1717? Four storms left the Northeast under four feet of snow, and there were drifts up to 25 feet high. And they didn’t even have snowblowers.

The Washington and Jefferson Snowstorm of 1772 trapped both men in their homes under three feet of the white stuff. In 1922 the Knickerbocker Storm dumped more than two feet of snow on Washington, collapsing the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater and killing 100 people.

In January 1821, the Hudson River froze solid, and people walked between New Jersey and New York.

A massive storm in February 1969 buried New York under two feet of snow. Travelers, including my parents, were trapped at airports. My folks huddled in an unheated building for two nights until my new husband discovered his inner Edmund Hillary and found a taxi driver with chains on his wheels willing to make the trip to Kennedy. It took eight hours to get there from Cedarhurst and cost $50.

My husband is still working off the capital he earned from that little adventure.