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It’s easy to take weather forecasting for granted, especially given the difficulties with producing accurate forecasts, but at least we almost never get surprised by big storms. That wasn’t true in 1940, when an unusually warm November day turned deadly. In this episode, I tell the story of the Armistice Day Blizzard, a massive storm that plowed through the central part of the United States, shutting down cities and killing around 200 people. Thousands of people scrambled for makeshift shelter in downtown Minneapolis, while rural families took in hundreds of school children when buses got stuck in snow drifts. Duck hunters, though, were hit the hardest. The storm stranded hundreds of them in perilous conditions along the Mississippi River. Dozens died. The storm also brought out the best in many people, as strangers helped strangers, and ordinary people went to extraordinary lengths to rescue storm victims. This story is an except from my book Mississippi River Mayhem. 

In the Mississippi Minute, I have a few thoughts about low water on the Mississippi, and— hint— I don't see it as a tragedy.