Photo Friday: The Big Snow of 1982!

It's Photo Friday! This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the Big Snow in St. Louis...or as some may call it, the St. Louis Blizzard of 1982! I am posting a couple of pictures I took during the storm.

It wasn't a true blizzard by official definitions, but it was definitely a lot of snow. The official count was only 13-14 inches, but we measured 22 inches at our house! What was most remarkable about it was that it was not predicted. They had predicted that we would get minor accumulations, if anything.

I can remember that day/weekend. It was a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon. We were out with my brother-in-law shopping a 'tent' furniture sale. It was very cold and it rained very hard—a lot of cold, wet rain—all afternoon. By the time we were on our way home, we could see a little sleet and a few snowflakes mixed in. We weren't worried about it—the weather reports all said minor accumulations. 

But that evening, the snow started coming down. It was a very heavy snowfall! It wasn't long before snow completely covered our shared driveway! Along with our neighbors, we shoveled the driveway late that evening. But the snow kept coming. By the time we had cleared one end of the driveway, we had to go back and shovel the other end again! The snow just. didn't. stop! For almost 30 hours it didn't stop! At one point there was thunder and lightening. That was when I first heard the term 'thunder snow' spoken.

By late Sunday the snow had stopped, but the roads were impassible. This is a photo of Grand Avenue in St. Louis; a very busy thoroughfare under normal conditions.  In the distance you can see the people walking right in the middle of the street instead of using the sidewalks!

We had to walk to the nearest grocery store to pick up a few items. I'm not sure what we bought, but it may have been the classic snowbound grocery order—bread, milk, eggs! The snow had buried most cars up to their wheel wells. Some cars were almost completely buried in the snow drifts.

One thing I particularly remember is Monday morning when I got up to go to work. I got into my little bitty Toyota Tercel and took off the back way. I got about 3 blocks and turned to get onto Grand. There was a bus—a full-sized bus—stuck in the snow blocking the intersection. I had to back uphill the entire block to try another street. Lucky for me, the Tercel had front-wheel drive, which was not so common back then.

I got to work, and of course all anyone could talk of was the snow! That afternoon, our supervisor came around and told us all to go home and not come back until at least Thursday. Authorities had requested that all non-essential businesses close for three days. They needed the cars off the roads so that they could clear them. Closing down a city for three days was a big deal at the time! Of course, before we saw entire countries shut down due to a pandemic!

If you'd like to read more about the big snow, click here to read a story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.