This Date in Weather History

April 7, 1977 marked the first home game in the history of the Toronto Blue Jays. Actually, for a while, in February 1976 , it looked as if the National League’s San Francisco Giants would move to Toronto, where there were buyers eager for the club. When the Giants were sold in March 1976 to new owners determined to keep them in San Francisco, the American League jumped in to establish Toronto as an American League city, setting up an expansion club, and announced the Blue Jays, who began play the next year. Despite being one of the northernmost cities with a baseball team. The first games of the season for the franchise were actually not played at the home of some southern American League team as you might have expected in a search for warmer temperatures – but rather in Toronto. It was not a wise choice. With a sellout crowd on hand at Exhibition Stadium, more than 44,000 fans packed the old stadium, filling not only a new section built for baseball but also the football grandstand beyond the outfield fence. It was a snowy day and the lines on the field had to be brushed off constantly during the game – but nothing short of a blizzard was going to see the first Major League Baseball game in Toronto cancelled. Temperatures were in the 20s. The wintry weather did not deter the team ether, and the Blue Jays won their first ever major league game beating the Chicago White sox 9-5.

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April 6, 1936 , brought one of the worst weather-related disasters in Georgia history. A series of strong tornados struck the southern United States but none was deadlier than the one that struck Gainesville, Georgia on April 6 1936. It was part of a devastating outbreak of 17 tornadoes across the South. And it wasn’t the first for Gainesville - another tornado killed more than 100 people in January 1903. In 1936, not one, but two tornadoes tore through the heart of town, destroying much of the business district and the county courthouse, trapping hundreds in debris. The funnel fueled fires all over the area, including the Cooper Pants manufacturing company, where 60 employees were killed. The storm left more than 200 dead, 1,600 injured, 2,000 homeless and millions of dollars in damage in Gainesville and 454 people were killed by the tornado outbreak across the south in the second deadliest ever recorded in US history. President Franklin Roosevelt toured the city three days later, and returned in 1938 to rededicate the courthouse and city hall after a massive citywide rebuilding effort.

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The summer of 1816 was not like any summer people could remember. The National Center for Atmospheric Research reported that, snow fell in New England and gloomy, cold rains fell throughout Europe. It was cold and stormy and dark. 1816 became known in Europe and North America as “The Year Without a Summer.” The year before on April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano, started to rumble with activity. Over the following four months the volcano exploded - the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history. Many people close to the volcano lost their lives in the event. Tambora ejected so much ash and dust into the atmosphere that the sky darkened and the Sun was blocked from view. The large particles spewed by the volcano fell to the ground nearby, covering towns with enough ash to collapse homes. Smaller particles spewed by the volcano were light enough to spread through the atmosphere over the following months and had a worldwide effect on climate. They made their way high into the stratosphere, where they could distribute around the world more easily. Earth’s average global temperature dropped more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The Year Without a Summer had many impacts in Europe and North America. Crops were wiped out - either by frost or a lack of sunshine. This caused food to be scarce. The lack of successful crops that summer made the food which was grown more valuable, and the price of food climbed. Because the price of oats increased, it was more expensive for people to feed their horses. Horses were the main method of transportation, so with expensive oats, the cost of travel increased. The gloomy summer weather also inspired writers. During that summer-less summer, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a horror novel set in an often stormy environment.

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In the 1930s, lighter than air ships, or dirigibles where the rage for long distance flight. Trans-ocean flight by airplanes was virtually impossible, especially as a passenger service. Planes would have to hop and skip from one re-fueling station to another across the north Atlantic. Long distance non-stop flight was still a way off not coming into practical availability until well after world War II. So, the big balloons where the rage. Many of them would ultimately meet with disaster including the US Shenandoah and the famous explosion and crash of the German air ship, Hindenburg in Lakehurst New Jersey in 1937. The Shenandoah had crashed 12 years earlier than the Hindenburg in 1925 when it flew through a thunderstorm. But the big ships kept flying. The Akron made many flights across the US as a promotion for the US Navy. The Akron was on such a flight on the early morning of April 4, 1933 off the coast of New jersey. It soon encountered severe weather, which did not improve when the airship passed over Barnegat Light, New Jersey. The Akron broke up rapidly and sank in the stormy Atlantic. The crew of a nearby German merchant ship saw lights descending toward the ocean at about 12:23 a.m. and altered course to investigate. The Akron slowly sunk in the ocean, the accident left 73 dead, and only three survivors. The day of the lighter than air ships would continue for several more years only to meet with one disaster after another almost all fueled by encounters with violent weather.

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The last few days of March 1974 and the first couple of days of April 1974 brought unseasonable warmth to much of the nation east of the Mississippi River. Across Ohio and northern Kentucky, the daffodils were blooming, and grass had turned a bright green, and, in some places, there was a hint of blue, that marks many types of grasses in Kentucky. Birds had already started to build their nests as the unseasonable warmth lasted for several days. But it was a false sign of spring and trouble was brewing in the vast frozen hinterlands of arctic Canada. Bitter cold from the departed winter still held sway up in the great north and when the jet stream that had pulled up toward the Canadian border to transport the out of season warmth to the Ohio valley buckled, the cold was unleashed. Once the cold spilled over that region record low temperatures would wreak havoc with the blossoming buds and leave a skiff of snow on the ground. But before that happened, a violent cold front marking the leading edge of the bitter blast would rake across the region. It spanned killer twisters that went into the record books as the "Super Tornado Outbreak " - In 18 hours mostly on April 3, 1974, 148 tornadoes struck 13 states from Georgia to the Canadian border. 315 were killed and 6100 injured. Damage reached 1/2 billion dollars or almost 3 billion in 2021 dollars. Brandenburg, KY was completely destroyed with 28 killed and half of Xenia, OH was leveled with 33 dead.

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The city of St. Louis, Missouri, is known as the “Gateway to the West.” It has this nickname because it was the starting point for the westward movement of people in the United States during the early to mid-1800s. It was a traveling hub for many settlers, hunters and others migrating west. The Gateway Arch now in St. Louis symbolizes the city’s nickname. St. Louis was where many wagon trains got organized that first began to head west on the Oregon Trail and to California. Even though Kansas City and Independence Missouri where other jumping off points, St. Louis was the last big city that many settlers encountered. The "Gateway to the West" was where these travelers could load up on supplies they couldn’t find elsewhere before heading through the vast open western wilderness. April was a time or organization before waiting a few more weeks for the snow in the Rockies to melt. It all had to be timed just right because leaving too late in the spring might mean getting stuck in the mountains by the snow of the coming winter, and that could result in disaster. Nice Spring weather was the key to a good start. On April 2, 1837 the weather failed to cooperate dumping 17” of snow in St. Lois and as much as 24” in nearby towns just to the west delaying the start of many wagon trains.

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April snowfalls in the northeastern section of the United States are not unusual, but heavy snowfalls are rare. April snowfall totals average less than 5% of the season average in places like Boston. In fact, the normal snowfall in the month of April in Boston is less than 2”. In 1997 what would go into the books at the Great April Fools Day Snowstorm blasted up the East Coast. Cold air was already firmly in place across the region and this system pounded New England on April 1, 1997. 25.4” of snow fell at Boston’s Logan Airport, and broke the all-time 24-hour snowfall record of 23.6" set 1n February 1978. 100,000 people were left without power. This storm also made April 1997 the snowiest on record, easily surpassing the 13.3” that fell in April 1982. Winds gusted to 72 mph on Blue Mountain, Massachusetts, and to 54 mph in Boston. In a 2-day period from March 31 to April 1 Milford, Massachusetts picked up 36”, and Worcester, Mass was buried under 33”. Parts of the Catskills in New York State had up to 40”. In parts of Northwestern NJ, as much as 2’ of snow fell.

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One of the earliest chronicled winter storms to strike upstate New York after the Revolution, was the strong system that impacted the region on March 31, 1807. The Herald in Cooperstown , NY reported, and I quote “The wind roared in the forests similar to the sound of the great cataract, the air was alternately filled with snow and transient gleams from the sun.” Along the Atlantic coast high winds and rain was the scene in New York Harbor, The New York Post described the situation. From its pages it said: “Amidst the bustle along the ports, in securing vessels and getting out fenders, were seen hundreds with their dogs, killing rats, which had been routed by the high tide. Hardly a terrier in the city was unemployed; and we may safely say, not less than 1000 rats were destroyed on the eastside of town. Though this remark may, by some, be considered unworthy of notice, it will be of use, if a proper use of it – that is, by removing the carcasses of the animals before the sun operates on them.”

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In the 1820’s and 1830s just after Maine became a state, after separating from Massachusetts, crop failures combined with cold weather caused some in New England to dream of warmer climates to the west. About this time Newspaperman Horace Greely was purported to have said “Go west, young man, and grow up with the country”? Many started the exodus for the Midwest. A major cradle of Midwestern settlement was Maine, Maine’s stony soil and the decline of its shipping trade pushed thousands of Mainers to get out just after it achieved statehood in 1820. The exodus was so bad that many newspaper editors in Maine wrote about the fear that the new state would actually be depopulated by “Illinois Fever” and the rush to lumbering towns along the Great Lakes — and then Oregon. Many of those Mainers and New Englanders settled in Indiana in addition to Illinois. They were greeted by a period of mild winters for a decade or so, but I was not to remain that way. The weather pattern shifted back to more typical Midwest cold and snowy winters. On March 30, 1843 2 feet was measured on the ground across much of Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. Until this point, farmers and loggers of the region had thought the climate to be better than New England – where many had just originated. The winter of 1842-43 dashed their hopes.

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According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, ice jams on bodies of water are caused by melting snow and ice in the springtime. Warm temperatures and spring rains cause snow and ice to melt very rapidly. All this extra water causes frozen rivers and streams to swell up, and the layer of ice on top of the river begins to break up. The rushing river carries large chunks of ice downstream, and sometimes a group of ice chunks get stuck in a narrow passage of a river or stream. The ice chunks form an ice jam or ice dam, that blocks the natural flow of the river. Ice jams can be dangerous for people living in towns nearby. Because the river is blocked, the rushing water has nowhere to go and it can cause flooding in the surrounding area. On March 29th, 1848 a very unusual ice jam formed. Centered on that day for about 24 hours, Niagara Falls ran dry. The Niagara River was reduced to a trickle as a massive ice jam formed near Buffalo. Strong winds has blown ice from Lake Erie into the River entrance and completely blocked it. It was only when the ice shifted the next day that the water resumed its flow over the falls.

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