Rochester set a temperature record for March 1st when it hit 66 degrees shortly before 5:00 p.m. That broke the record of 62 set in 1954. But within five hours, the temperature had dropped by more than 20 degrees as a cold front swept across the region, and the Greater Rochester International Airport recorded a wind gust of 64 miles per hour.
Those winds blew down at least two gas station canopies, one on South Plymouth Avenue in Rochester and the other in Batavia. Power lines came down, in one case trapping eight people in their cars on Manitou Road in Ogden
More than 14,000 Rochester Gas and Electric customers lost electric power because of those winds late Wednesday night, about 13,000 of them in Monroe County. Outages were widely scattered, but Greece had nearly 2,500. Ogden, Gates, Chili, Mendon and the city were also hard hit.