There are certain winter storms we will always remember.
The Bengals’ Freezer Bowl in January of 1982 is one for the ages. As the San Diego Chargers battled the Bengals for the AFC Championship – and lost, 27-7 – coach Forrest Gregg led the orange and black through a battle where the temperature was 9 degrees below, but the wind chill made it NEGATIVE 37 DEGREES. (Please pardon the yelling.) Cincinnati fought like mad to win the game, but those San Diego players were not accustomed to subzero freezes.
Another storm we will not forget is the Blizzard of 1978. As remembered by Mark J. Price in the Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio was battered with hurricane-force winds in late January of 1978.
As the storm hit after 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night, many people had fallen asleep before the news had crossed the wires. That night’s original forecast, on the nightly local news, was for rain with possible snow flurries. As the storm changed, the later warnings revealed how dire the situation would turn out to be.
More than 50 Ohioans died that week, in a blizzard often referred to as the Storm of the Century. The storm wreaked more than $100 million in damage, as all roads were shut down.
Rescue crews struggled to reach injured people, as strong winds circled over the Buckeye State.
Snow plow teams were overpowered, as the temperature plummeted from 34 to 13 over the course of one hour, just before 6 a.m. The wind chill made the air feel like 60 degrees below zero, as the winds ripped off rooftops and shattered windows.
