This Date in Weather History

This Date in Weather History

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This Date in Weather History episodes

  • 1774: 4" of snow falls in Germantown, Philadelphia
    The neighborhood of Germantown in Philadelphia sits at a higher elevation than most of the rest of the city. From 250-300 feet above sea level the temperature can average a degree or two colder than the city below. During weather situations that are borderline between rain and snow, often times much of the City of Philadelphia will have a slushy mixture of rain and snow, while only wet snow falls in Germantown and its adjacent elevated neighborhood of Chestnut Hill; sometimes depositing a couple inches of snow. On May 4, 1774 Germantown was a not part of the City of Philadelphia yet, it was a prosperous town of hundreds living in long established stone houses. Germantown was founded in 1683 and awaited its fate as the location of one of the most important battles of the Revolutionary War in 1777. But on May 4, 1774 as a strong storm surged up the Atlantic seaboard, temperatures held just near freezing, and while rain fell in the City of Philadelphia below 4” of heavy wet snow blanketed Germantown in one of the latest snowfalls on record in the region, before or since.

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    2 min
  • 1978: 11" of rain falls on "Sun Day" in New Orleans

    Most of New Orleans, Louisiana is below the flowing water level of the Mississippi River, that also means that the city is below sea level and so both the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain surfaces are also above the ground level of the city. Because of that, the city does not have a natural drainage for rainwater, so pumps are required to remove rainwater from the region. On May 3, 1979 the pumping drainage system had been in operation since 1900. That system was designed to handle one inch of rain per hour for the first three hours, and one-half inch per hour thereafter. Any rainfall in excess of this limit resulted in drainage slowdown and flooding, often times during extensive thunderstorm cloudbursts or tropical systems and Hurricanes the capacity to pump out the water simply was not effective. May 3, 1978 was proclaimed 'Sun Day.' All across the United States, celebrations were planned to pay tribute to the power and potential of solar energy. No celebration occurred in New Orleans, the sun was not visible all day, in fact heavy rains fell most of the day. Almost 11” of rain fell, more and 8” of that from 8am until noon. It was more than the drainage system could handle, actually more than twice its capacity. There was severe property damage, as much of the city sat in more than 5 feet of water as a result of the heavy rains and the failure of the pumping system.

     


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    3 min
  • 2009: Storm collapses roof of Dallas Cowboys' practice facility
    Twelve people were hospitalized Saturday May 2, 2009 after the roof of the Dallas Cowboys' indoor practice facility in Frisco, Texas collapsed during a thunderstorm. The giant blue Cowboys star atop the building lay crumpled on the ground. The storm knocked out power at team headquarters and splintered trees across the property. The roof was a large air- and tension-supported canopy with aluminum frames covering a regulation 100-yard football field. Approximately 70 players, coaches, staff and media were reported inside. Some of the injuries were serious, but none were considered life-threatening. Based on the national standards for determining loads and for designing structural steel buildings, the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology researchers studying the Cowboys facility found that the May 2 wind load demands on the building's framework—a series of identical, rib-like steel frames supporting a tensioned fabric covering—were greater than the capacity of the frame to resist those loads. The researchers determined that, at the time of collapse, the wind was blowing predominantly from west to east, perpendicular to the long side of the building. Maximum wind speed gusts at the time of collapse were estimated to be in the range of 55 to 65 miles per hour—well below the design wind speed of 90 miles per hour in the national standard for wind loads. The NIST report recommended building owners, operators and designers inspect all fabric-covered, steel-frame structures, evaluating them to ensure they are designed to handle appropriate wind loads.

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    3 min
  • 1854: 90 consecutive hours of rain falls in New England
    The winter of 1853-1854 had been a particularly snowy one across the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. Not record breaking, but it was a cold winter and the snows that fell during the winter months didn’t melt much. The cold lingered into April and so did the snow on the ground. The weather pattern broke as the month ended, winds in the high atmosphere turned from the northwest to out of the south and ushered in warm air that had been building across the Gulf states in the early spring. At the same time copious volumes of moisture were carried along in the current of air from the Gulf of Mexico and the result was an unceasing rain that developed all across New England. Along with a soaking rain and soaring temperatures cloudbursts imbedded in thunderstorms brought hour after hour of rain. By the time the rain ended on May 1, 1854 it had been raining for 90 consecutive hours. Rainfall totaled more than 5” in Worchester, Mass and more than 7 ½ inches in Southwick, Mass, a general 3-5” rainfall fell from Philadelphia all the way to Maine. The rain coupled with the warm snow melting temperatures produced record flooding all across New England. The greatest crest on the Connecticut River was at Hartford where the river reached almost 29’ above flood stage.

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    3 min
  • 1887: Massive Flooding at China's "Yellow River"
    The Huang He (Wang He) or Yellow River is one of the longest rivers in China, at 3,398 miles, it loops northward from the mountains in western China, then flows east, each year bringing 1.6 billion tons of fine-grained silt from the mountains to the huge flat basin of the north China plains. That rich laden dirt and silt makes the region one of the most fertile in the world, it is China’s breadbasket. The silt nourishes and replenishes the land. The Yellow River gets its name from its rich, fine-ground, golden mud. Unfortunately for the farmers, the only way the river can spread its fertilization is by flooding the fields; and the Yellow River has flooded a recorded 1,593 times in the last four thousand years, with catastrophic effects. The worst flooding occurred in 1887. For decades leading up to 1887 dikes and embankments had been built along the river to control its flooding and provide irrigation for crops. In some places, because of those levees, the river was flowing more than 20 feet higher than the surrounding countryside – a breech in the system was all that was needed for disaster. An usually snowy winter and a wet mild spring led to massive snowmelt in the mountains and heavy rains contributed more water. On April 30, 1887 the first of several massive floods erupted as the river could no longer be contained. Flooding continued off and on all summer. The flooding led to the greatest weather disaster in human history. More than 900,000 perished in the initial rounds of flooding close to the river with another estimated 1.3 million drowned from flooding away from the river as the floodwaters spread out all across northern China. A further estimated three to four million died from flood-related, waterborne diseases, with a thick deposit of muddy silt 8 ft deep, the most fertile fields in China were a desert which had to be cleared by bare hands and wheelbarrows.

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    3 min
  • 1991: Tropical storm surge floods Bangladesh
    On April 22, 1991 an area of tropical thunderstorms began to organize in the Bay of Bengal it would grow to become one of the deadliest tropical cyclones ever recorded. The storm hit, one of the most populated areas in Bangladesh. An estimated 200,000 people were killed by the storm, as many as 10 million people lost their homes, and overall property damage was in the billions of dollars. Once the weather system organized it began moving north. By April 24 the storm was designated Tropical Storm 02B, and by April 28 it was a tropical cyclone, or as they are known in the western hemisphere, a hurricane. One day later on April 29 the storm hit, with winds of up to 150 miles per hour. The damage was immediate, as a storm surge as high as 15 feet engulfed the flat, coastal plans of southeastern Bangladesh. The surge washed away entire villages and swamped farms, destroying crops and spreading fears of widespread hunger as well as economic woes. As a result of a storm in 1970, a few storm shelters had been built, but they were not enough. Though in 1991 some were saved by the shelters, many people had doubted warnings of the storm. Since the 1991 storm, the Bangladesh government has built thousands of elevated shelters in coastal areas.

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    3 min
  • 1992: "Grapefruit-sized" hail devastates parts of Texas

    A hailstone begins as a water droplet that is swept upward by an updraft inside of a thundercloud. Inside the cloud, there are a large number of other supercooled water droplets already present. These supercooled particles will adhere to the water droplet’s surface, forming layers of ice around it. The size the hailstone reaches depends on the amount of time it spends surrounded by supercooled water droplets, but eventually gravity causes the stone to fall to the Earth. As gravity takes over, they will fall to Earth at approximately 106 miles per hour. The exact velocity each stone falls at will vary depending on several conditions, such as weight, air friction and collisions with other suspended objects. The evening of April 28, 1992, brought with it one of the most devastating hailstorms of all time, pummeling two areas approximately 100 miles apart. For nearly five hours, residents between Waco to Fort Worth, Texas braced as hailstones the size of grapefruits 4.5 in. diameter smashed windows and decimated roofs. The worst damage was reported across Ellis, Dallas, and Tarrant counties. More than 600 pets and wild animals were killed. Damage was estimated at $750 Million or almost $1.5 Billion in 2022 dollars.

     


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    3 min
  • 2004: High temperatures smash records across Southern California

    Santa Ana Winds occur when air from an area of high pressure over the dry, desert region of the southwestern U.S. flows westward in its clockwise circulation toward the California coast. This creates dry winds that flow east to west through the mountain passages in Southern California. These winds are most common during the cooler months of the year, occurring from September through May. Santa Ana winds typically feel warm or even hot because as the cool desert air moves down the side of the mountain, it is compressed, and that causes the temperature of the air to rise at the rate of more than 5 degrees for every thousand feet in descends. These strong winds can cause major property damage. They also increase wildfire risk because of the dryness of the winds and the speed at which they can spread flames across the landscape. The winds can produce uncommon heat. On April 27, 2004 a strong Anta Ana developed causing temperatures to soar all across Southern Calif smashing records by more than 10 degrees in some places. Ontario, California, near Los Angles reached 100 degrees breaking the old record of 90, Riverside reached 101, the mercury at the beaches reached closed to 90.




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    3 min
  • 1986: The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
    The Chernobyl, Russia nuclear disaster was the worst nuclear disaster in history and occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Plant. A catastrophic eruption ripped through the power plant on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive particles into the sky. The deadly blast was caused by the explosion of the RBMK reactor number 4, a result of human error and faulty equipment. More than 50,000 people from the nearby town of Pripyat were evacuated following the blast. But plumes of deadly radioactive matter were sent high into the atmosphere as the uranium core lay exposed in the days that followed. The particles were swept across Europe by winds. Officials in Sweden, almost 700 miles away were alerted of radiation levels within their atmosphere within 48 hours of the explosion. Soviet authorities initially denied the claims anything happened but were forced to reveal the mistake as the scale of the accident unfolded. The initial impacted areas were Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia, with some areas contaminated indefinitely and to this day are still wastelands. The World Nuclear Association said: “Most of the released material was deposited close by as dust and debris, but the lighter material was carried by the wind over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and to some extent over Scandinavia and Europe. ”The weather was a big factor as rains and snow were responsible for bringing radiation down to the ground, where it would penetrate into the Earth. The World Health Organization says an estimated 7,722 square miles of land in Europe was affected by radiation.

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    3 min
  • 1982: Lightning strike damages Alabama town's water supply
    Most lightning strikes occur from cloud to cloud – but about 20% go from clouds to the ground. Lightening striking the ground has caused problems with pipes and water supplies.. Some people have also experienced cloudy or discolored water after a lightning storm. Due to the strike, the vibration into the earth can shake a ground water well causing any built-up minerals to fall into the water supply. When lightning strikes near a home or other structure, sending electricity shooting through the ground, the electricity, which prefers to flow through metal rather than dirt, seeks out any buried copper pipes or the home's grounding rod. Building codes require the metal grounding rod to be connected to a home's wiring and pipes. Electricity moves through the pipes until it hits a dead end, such as when the copper pipe meets a plastic service line or some other nonmetallic fitting. Lightening has also coursed through the ground and impacted tree roots and pipes close to those roots. On April 25, 1982 in Lexington, Alabama lightning struck a tree, then reached through its roots to a PVC pipe holding drinking water. Almost 50% of the town’s water supply was lost before the pipe could be repaired.

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    3 min

About This Date in Weather History

From the publisher's feed

In this daily podcast, you’ll learn something new each day. AccuWeather Meteorologist, Evan Myers takes a look back on weather events that impacted this date in the past,…

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