Weather Geek: Remembering the Blizzard of '78

Today marks the 39th anniversary of the biggest winter storm so far in my life and probably yours as well. The "Great Blizzard of 1978" hit the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes Jan. 25-27. The storm dumped vast amounts of snow with near-hurricane-strength wind gusts heaping snow into enormous drifts up to 15 feet tall. In the end, 70 people died during the storm -- 51 of them here in Ohio alone.
This severe blizzard was the result of a relatively rare merger of two distinct upper level waves (one ove