North Country was devastated by damage
This was “one of those storms” that evokes memories much like the Blizzard of 1966, the Blizzard of 1993, or the Labor Day Storm of 1998. You remember exactly where you were and what you were doing if you got hit by one of these whoppers. With the 1998 Ice Storm, it really depending on exactly which part of New York, New England and southeastern Canada you were travelling through or living that ultimately determined how bad it was. Some of the worst weather occurred from around the Watertown area northeast through far northern New York into Saint Lawrence, Essex and Franklin counties as well as portions of Vermont and Maine. That storm's anniversary starts today.
A recap by the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont summarizes the storm:
The Devastating Ice Storm of 1998 was a historic storm that affected millions of people across northern New York, northern New England and southeast Canada. Some of the origins of this storm were tied to a phenomena in the Pacific Ocean called El-Nino. Deep tropical moisture was supplied by a jet stream pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico which delivered record rainfall across the affected, while at the same time, low-level cold dense air was supplied by high pressure across Quebec. Property damage was in the billions of dollars, millions of acres of trees were damaged or destroyed and millions of people lost power for days and even weeks. However, a very large majority of injuries and fatalities with this storm were caused by human, "indirect" sources that are largely preventable. These sources include vehicle accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning, electrocution from touching downed electrical wires during storm clean-up and other injuries resulting from post storm clean-up.
There are a bunch of other web links that I will provide below that give detailed information and accounts of the Ice Storm. Click on them for more information. Did you or someone you know or are related to live through this Ice Storm? Do you have any pictures? Please tell us by commenting at the bottom of this web page and then share the pictures on MyCNYcentral.com. You can also e-mail us pictures to news@cnycentral.com or weather@cnycentral.com.
Here are some of the other web links:
Ice Storm on .98: A Retrospective
National Weather Service Burlington, Vermont Ice Storm Page
Wikipedia Ice Storm 1998 Page
Montreal’s Impact from the storm
US Army Corps of Engineers: Evaluation of the Severity of the 1998 Ice Storm
“The Grid and the Village” – A book written about an insider’s account of the events & the electrical grid
A T-Shirt sold in Ottawa, Canada
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