Even meteorological experts, who knew what was coming, had little idea what exactly they would face in the coming days. The storm set records still in force to this day, including the most snow in a month in Indianapolis, 30.6 inches, and the most snow on the ground in Indianapolis, 20 inches. Indianapolis received 15.5 inches at the end of the storm. According to the National Weather Service, the 1978 snow storm set other records, including the most snow in a month in Indianapolis (30.6 inches) and the most snow on the ground in Indianapolis (20 inches, including 5 inches already on the ground from a snowstorm the previous weekend).
Snow set records that still stand in Indianapolis, including the most snow on the ground at one time: 20 inches. It usually takes about eight months for Indianapolis to reach 20 inches of snow. Classes at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and at Notre Dame University in Notre Dame, Indiana, were canceled for the first time in the history of those universities; at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana (where 25 inches of snow fell) for the third time in their history; and at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, For the first time since the assassination of President John F. A police officer told The Indianapolis Star that the approximately 300 people stranded at Indianapolis International Airport were “one big happy family.” In Indiana, on the second day, half an hour after the front passed through the area, Indianapolis International Airport closed due to a lack of electricity.
The governor declared a snow emergency for the entire state on the morning of the 26th and, by that afternoon, the Indiana State Police considered that all roads in Indiana were closed. Victoria Gale Redstone was born at Indianapolis Methodist Hospital nine months and one day after the historic storm landed, her father, Marion, a local lawyer, said in an interview with The Indianapolis Star in 1993.The Indianapolis airport closed, an Amtrack train was stranded and, by the afternoon of January, on the 26th, all highways in Indiana were officially closed.
