This Date in Weather History

The flood of November 3-4, 1927, stands as the greatest natural disaster in Vermont history. Devastation occurred throughout the state, with 1,285 bridges lost, countless homes and buildings destroyed, and hundreds of miles of roads and railroad tracks swept away. The flood waters claimed 84 lives, including that of the Vermont Lieutenant Governor at the time, S. Hollister Jackson. Rainfall during the month of October averaged about 150 percent of normal across the state. In northern and central sections, some places received 300 percent of normal. Heavy rainfall periods during October were separated enough so flooding did not occur. Instead, the rain caused the soil to become saturated. Combined with the lateness in the year and the fact that most vegetation was either in, or near, seasonal dormancy, any further rainfall would runoff directly into the rivers. This is exactly the scenario that led to Vermont's greatest disaster. Rain began on the evening of November 2, as a cold front moved into the area from the west. Rainfall continued through the night with light amounts being recorded by the morning of the 3rd. Rainfall intensity increased during the afternoon of the 3rd as a storm moved up along the east coast. This storm contained huge amounts of moisture associated with the remnants of a former tropical storm. A strong southeast flow developed off the Atlantic Ocean. This moisture-laden air was forced to rise as it encountered the Green Mountains, resulting in torrential downpours along and east of the Green Mountains on November 4.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Southern California is often subject to thick moist flows off the Pacific Ocean. The contrast of chilly ocean waters and relatively warm and dry land, especially in the autumn months often brings a marine layer of low laying and thick fog. Often times this can blow in off the ocean quickly. Sometimes the mist and fog are able to burn off fairly quickly if the temperature inversion – or what is defined as a warmer layer of air trapped above cooler moist air at the surface is able to break . Sometimes that doesn’t happen and it remains murky and damp with very low visibility. On November 3, 2002 dense marine fog rolled into the Los Angeles area just before sunrise and the result was an awful morning compute. 194 vehicles were involved in 2 pileups on I-710, with that dense fog to blame. Remarkably, no deaths occurred, bit it took the better part of the day to clean up the pile up.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In early America and even in the first half century of the establishment of the Republic the ability to move around in snow was fraught with obstacles. The best way was with sleighs, wagons wheels were removed and long strips of metal or more usually wood, were attached to the wagons to run along the ground. Deeper powdery snow was ideal for movement just like for a skier. This idea worked well in the countryside and even along most rural roads where there was little traffic. This kind of transport worked even if the snow was slushy, icy or even muddy. In cities, not so much, because of the traffic ripping us the still mainly unpaved streets. What was most hoped for then was that powdery snowfall. On November 1, 1819, 7” of snow fell across New York City. New York at the time was the largest city in the United State and the only US city with more than 100,000 in population topping out at 120,000. It had become the center of American life and business, so it was important to get around. The powdery snowfall was ideal – except for one thing – it came too early in the season. No part of the transportation system was ready for such an early season snowfall – powdery or not – and wagon and carriages were not able to make to switch from wheels to tracks and so transportation came to a halt for several days.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

November typical brings the first widespread wintry weather of the season to the United Stated and in 1972 the month didn’t waste any time getting started. A severe autumn storm moved out of the Southern Rockies into the central plains leaving in its wake heavy snow, flooding and zero degree cold. Heavy snow fell in Denver. More than 10” on rain in 3 days pushed the Hickory Creek out of its banks in the Neosho area of southwestern Missouri. Residents of low-lying areas in the town of 8,000 were evacuated. One person drowned at Poplar Bluff, in SE Missouri, when a 3 1/2-inch downpour triggered local flooding. The mercury dropped to near zero in the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico where snows measured a food and a half deep impeding travel. Temperatures dropped to near freezing in the deserts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1963 was a relatively dry year in the City of Philadelphia. Rainfall was less than 35” or more than 5” below normal. Usually the autumn along the eastern seaboard is dry with few showers or largescale storm systems. Caught in between the thunderstorm season of the Spring and Summer and the strong cold fronts and wintry storms, October can feature warmish to chilly days with plenty of sunshine. In fact, the major source of rain in the autumn is the occasional tropical system that will move up the east coast with rain thrown westward into the Delaware Valley where Philadelphia is located. When Tropical storms or Hurricanes don’t materialize the autumn can be very dry indeed. On October 3, 1963, Philadelphia did receive a few rain showers as a storm moved by to the south, then for the rest of the month – not a drop of rain. When the books closed on the month on October 31, 1963 it marked the end of 28 consecutive days with no rain in the City of Brotherly Love – a record that stands to this day. On November first, it rained. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

According to the Donora, Pennsylvania Historical Society and Smog Museum’s web site: “As the week of October 24, 1948 began, the nearly 14,000 people of Donora paid little attention to the dense heavy fog covering the town. The cool to cold autumn nights combined with warm water from the Monongahela river and smoke from the local steel mill, namely the Zinc Works blast furnace and open hearth, as well as thousands of coal furnaces in local homes, would typically limit visibility until afternoon. As the week wore on, residents began to realize this fog was anything but typical. By Thursday, October 28, streetlights were on during mid-day and people walking the streets were struggling to find their way.  Soon, many elderly people began to complain of breathing difficulty, thousands were ill, and houseplants began to shrivel. Then, on October 30 1948, people began to die. Donora physicians worked around the clock, treating victims as best they could against a mysterious pathogen. The Donora Board of Health set up an emergency aid station and temporary morgue in the basement of the Community Center. Volunteer firemen felt their way door to door, administering oxygen and attempting to get people help. Management at the mill refused to believe or admit that the waste they were emitting caused the problem; after all, it was the same thing they had been doing for over thirty years. In less than three days, thousands of people were impacted, hundreds of people fell sick, twenty-six people were dead, along with dozens of animals. Who knows how many more followed in the weeks, months and years to come that are not counted among the twenty-six.  On October 31, rains finally dispersed the killer fog, but left the nation in shock. The dead and sick were not only from Donora but also from the neighboring communities of Webster and Sunnyside that were down wind and across the river. The Federal, State and Local governments, along with numerous universities and scientists, investigated. Sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. Steel's Donora Zinc Works and its American Steel & Wire plant were frequent occurrences in Donora. What made the 1948 event more severe was a temperature inversion, in which a mass of warm, stagnant air was trapped in the valley. The pollutants in the air mixed with fog to form a thick, yellowish, acrid smog that inhibited the normal process where the sun would burn off the fog. This smog hung over Donora for five days. The sulfuric acid, nitrogen dioxide, fluorine and other poisonous gases that usually dispersed into the atmosphere were caught in the inversion and continued to accumulate until rain ended the weather pattern.. The best way to sum up the event is a quote by W. Michael McCabe "Before there was an Environmental Protection Agency, before there was an Earth Day before Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, there was Donora." 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore north of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy's devastating storm track is a rare one among hurricanes; a new statistical analysis estimates that the track of the storm — which took a left-hand turn in the Atlantic before slamming into the East Coast — has an average probability of happening only once every 700 years. The storm's near-perpendicular strike on the coast was a major factor in the severe flooding seen in New York, New Jersey and other nearby states. But the rareness of the storm's track doesn't mean that the coast is safe from other severe storms. Don’t have a misimpression that we don't have to worry, that it's going to be 700 years until we have another surge, it’s just an average and could happen again next year or next decade. Hurricane Sandy caused about 150 deaths, along with billions of dollars in damage when it hit the Caribbean and the U.S. East Coast in late October 2012. The storm's power came from a combination of factors, including its large size while out at sea and a full moon that made tides 20 percent higher than normal, both of which ramped up Sandy's storm surge. Researchers also pointed to weather patterns that affected Sandy's track. A region of high pressure blocked Sandy from taking a more common track out over the western North Atlantic, forcing the storm into the coast. Sandy also interacted with a mid-level, low-pressure system in the atmosphere, which helped push the storm along its unusual track. To study the rarity of Sandy's track, Columbia University mathematicians had to use a model to generate synthetic tropical cyclones. The researchers could not rely on previously recorded data, as Sandy's trajectory and near-direct impact on New Jersey was unprecedented in the historical record. The researchers' statistical model generated millions of these synthetic hurricanes, which were then used to determine rates for landfall. Most of the tracked landfalls in the model grazed the coast before veering out into the Atlantic. Sandy, by contrast, hit the coast at an angle of just 17 degrees from perpendicular, almost perfectly crisscrossing the typical storm track. The sustained winds toward the coast from the direct path is continually pushing a wall of water onto the coast, and results in a greater surge magnitude, compared to more typical in-land winds sweeping along the coast. This large surge pushed huge amounts of water onto streets in Manhattan. The peak water level, the surge plus the tide at the Battery, Manhattan's southern tip, was 14 feet above the average low tide level.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A potent coastal storm slammed the Northeast with strong winds, soaking rains and burying snow on October 28, 2008. The snow fell from New Jersey to Vermont with the heaviest amounts exceeding a foot. The weight of the snow, combined with the howling winds brought down tree limbs and power lines. The winds, alone knocked down trees from southern New England to the New York area. Snow totals reached 20 at Slide Mountain New York, a foot at Middleburgh, Pennsylvania and 16” at Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. Wind gusts reached 66 mph at Cape May New Jersey, 54 mph at Harrisburg, PA and 52 mph at Syracuse New York.  

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Accumulating snow is a fairly rare event in Paris, France. Snow is recorded on an average of just 15 days a winter and when it does snow it usually does not accumulate. Moisture heavy enough to produce more than an inch or two of snow occurs when a major storm sweeps in off the Atlantic ocean – but those storms are usually powerful and bring in mild air from off the ocean in addition to the moisture. Colder air must be in place from the east - usually originated in Russia. Occasionally in the middle of the winter that occurs and every few years a couple inches of snow fall. The Parisians say no city looks prettier than Paris in the snow. On October 27, 1692, 6” of snow fell on the City of Light – in one of the earliest measured snowfall before or since. I am sure the city looked great – but with no way to remove the snow I am sure it was quite messy ad hard to move about.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In October, as the length of sunlight begins to fade across the upper reaches of the Northern Hemisphere, cold air begins to build across the arctic. Snow is not uncommon and the depth and coverage of the snowpack is an important element in helping to build a reservoir of cold air across the region. The cold air strengths and is triggered southward by large wave patterns in the high atmosphere. In the later days of October 1919 heavy snows fell across the Yukon and other areas of northern Canada. Cold air built quickly and was released southward in the last week of the month. And so, it came to pass that on October 26, 1919 that arctic blast reached Bismarck, North Dakota and the mercury plunged to 10 below zero, the coldest temperature ever recorded in Bismarck in the month of October and the earliest, up to that time that the temperature dropped below zero.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.