While current forecasts make the prospect of a white Christmas uncertain in Hornell this year, a barrage of snow on Christmas Day in 1978 buried the Maple City under more than two feet of the white stuff and generated memories that have survived decades.
According to National Weather Service records, Hornell was hit with 26 inches of snow on Christmas Day in 1978, nearly doubling December’s monthly average of 14 inches in one 24-hour period.
Hornell had an existing snowpack of about two inches leading up to Christmas that year, the Weather Service reported, and it appears travel got tricky in a hurry, partly because of the snow that was already on the ground.
While records indicate that no new snow fell on Dec. 24, 1978, Hornell radio broadcaster Brian O’Neil and Hornell Fire Chief Frank Brzozowski said conditions were bad before the clock struck 12 a.m. on Christmas.
Now a highly-regarded broadcasting voice in Hornell, the snow snuffed out O’Neil’s young singing voice that Christmas.
With snow piling up quickly on Ashbaugh Hill, O’Neil remembers missing midnight mass at St. Ann’s Church because of the weather and being snowed in.
Adding to the disappointment: youngster O’Neil was in the church choir and was looking forward to performing.
Downtown Hornell is packed in with snow in this file photo, but the city has seen snowier days. The record Christmas Day snowfall for Hornell is the 26 inches that was dropped on the city in 1978.
Brzozowski, then a teenager, made it to St. Ann’s for midnight mass, but only after walking through huge mounds of snow from his house on Oak Street to the church.
Brzozowski said the snow eventually rose to the same height as the porch at his house.
Richard Dunning II, chief operator of the Hornell Water Pollution Control Plant, was a college student back home for winter break in 1978.
“We were snowed in for the better part of three or four days,” he remembers. “I walked around to everybody’s different houses and house parties.”
Dunning said walking was the best way to get around, considering there was a travel advisory in place and many roads were impassable.
The then 20-year-old had significantly fewer worries than his dad, Richard L. Dunning, who was mayor of Hornell back then.
“Everybody came to my dad’s house (on Hornell Street) for Christmas back in those days, so you had an overcrowded house,” he recalled. “Then nobody could move for three or four days, so it was a great big party.”
Hornell emergency officials check snow damage during a past snowstorm. Such a storm is unlikely this holiday season, but the record Christmas Day snowfall for Hornell is the 26 inches that was dropped on the city in 1978.
Anthony Sciotti has been a Hornell municipal worker for more than 50 years. The veteran water plant operator was with the Department of Public Works back in 1978, but the story he best remembers is of an unnamed on-call worker doing anything he could to get to the water plant that day.
“He was not able to get up the hill driving so he walked through the woods with snow way up past his waist to get up to the plant and make sure everything was fine,” Sciotti said.
Christmas Day 1978 was one for the record books in Wellsville as well. Nearly 18 inches of snowfall was recorded, the snowiest Christmas for the town by far, or at least the snowiest in memory.
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Snow covering possible on Christmas Day in Hornell
Officially, a white Christmas is one inch or greater, according to the Weather Service. By those standards, Hornell is not necessarily out of the running for a white Christmas.
Some snow showers are possible in the days leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the Weather Service said.
On Christmas Eve, Hornell’s forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies, a high temperature in the low to mid 30s, with a 30% chance of snow.
The Christmas Day will bring mostly cloudy skies and highs of around 38 degrees, the Weather Service said.
AccuWeather says there is a 30% chance of snow or flurries in Hornell on Christmas Day, along with the possibility of rain or freezing rain Christmas night.
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This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Over 2 feet of snow fell on Hornell on Christmas 1978: 2024 forecast
