The Icy Winter Of 1972-73

While I was recently having lunch with my family at one of our favorite restaurants, a song played over the radio station in the restaurant which brought me back a lot of weather memories. The song was Carly Simon's You're So Vain. It is one of my favorite songs and was a hit during the early months of 1973. I was in kindergarten at that time and I remember hearing it all over the radio. The reason the song brings me back a lot of weather memories is because that winter of 1972-73 turned out to be the least snowiest winter on record at Central Park with a total of only 2.8 inches of snow. Although not much snow fell, it was not an easy winter by no means.

That winter featured several storm systems in our region that turned out to be ice storms. The precipitation would start out as light snow, but then quickly change over to a dangerous mixture of sleet and freezing rain. This happened because a layer of above freezing temperatures moved into our area aloft while temperatures at the surface remained at or below freezing. As the icy mix hit the cold ground, it caused dangerous walking and driving conditions. I remember my mom and I walking very slowly and carefully back and forth from school during those events that winter. As the storms came to an end, the cold temperatures remained and so did the ice. This made it a difficult winter for our area, even though not much snow fell. That winter taught us that at least snow can be shoveled and plowed, while ice is very difficult to remove.

Meteorologist Iggy Camporeale