This Date in Weather History

In Edmonton, Alberta a massive snowstorm struck on January 17, 1994. Snow was whipped into huge drifts and visibility was severely limited. When storm like this strike they have widespread and even historic impacts. But all such events are personal and there are individual stories that amaze or are harrowing and don’t rise to the level of historic reporting – yet are extremely important to those involved. During this storm, blinded by blowing snow, a motorist drove her small car into the back of a tractor-trailer. The unsuspecting truck driver drove off with her vehicle stuck beneath the tanker. For 30 minutes, the coupled vehicles stayed together despite the woman’s frantic efforts to break free. Blowing snow kept other drivers from noticing. The truck driver stopped after he heard the car’s tires exploding. Luckily the driver of the car suffered only minor injuries in this storm fueled drive.

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January 16, 1916 brought a massive storm to California. Sweeping in off the Pacific Ocean the storm was pulling plenty of moisture northward all the way from Hawaii in what is often called the Pineapple Express. The storm struck with a vengeance with powerful gusts of wins that toppled trees and ripped off roofs from the San Francisco Bay area all the way to the Central Valley of California. Perhaps the most spectacular impact of the storm was the several inches of snow that feel in San Francisco and surrounding communities. With no way to clean off the snow on the hilly streets in the region those roads became slippery nightmares and travel halted for several days until the snow melted and transport was once again able to move.

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The winter of 1779-1780 had been fairly cold in the New York City area, with ice flows recorded on the North River – now known as the Hudson and the East River through the start of January 1780. But on January 15 the ice flows started to harden and merge together all the way out to the south of the city in the main harbor of New York freezing solid. The rivers and New York Harbor would see the ice thicken and hold firm all the way through the end of February. In fact, the ice became so thick that not only could sleigh and wagons move from Long Island to Manhattan and from Manhattan to Staten island and to New Jersey. With the Revolutionary War still in full swing the ice was even strong enough to support the movement of heavy cannons from place to place.

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Southern California's greatest snow occurred on this date. Fifteen inches blanketed San Bernardino, and even San Diego reported a trace of snow. According to the “History of Riverside, California” by Edgar Wallace Holmes, Jan. 11,1882 was a beautiful day. But the temperature dropped that night, it became overcast and snow began falling around daybreak. The snow fell all day on Jan. 12 and into the next day. By the 14th, Riverside and San Bernardino counties were totally snow-covered. The bitter winter weather extended up and down California and brought snow to all kinds of places that saw it very rarely, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. In Riverside, snow fell to a depth of 8 to 12 inches. So much snow blew into area canals that they became blocked in places and severe breaks occurred. Only a minor amount of damage occurred to the citrus fruit still on the trees, as the snow acted as an insulator. However, many trees were damaged when the weight of the snow, combined with the weight of the fruit, caused branches to break and trees to split. The city of San Bernardino, being at a higher elevation than Riverside, got more snow. The city had an estimated 12 to 15 inches. All transport came to a halt in the region for a week in what went into the history books as the greatest snowfall ever seen, before or since in Southern California.

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Ice along the Texas Gulf coast is not unknown, but it is a rarity to accumulate more than a thin ice coating, mainly on bridges and overpasses. Usually when that icing does occur it happening in the early morning hours and the common practice is simply to let it melt as the sun rises and heats up the roadways enough to raise the temperature above freezing to melt that ice and end the slippery conditions. On January 13, 1997 an ice storm glazed the Houston, TX area as well as parts of Louisiana. This time, temperatures were not just a degree of two below freezing but rather in the mid 20’s, so 1/2” thick ice formed from Beaumont, TX to Lake Charles, LA. The normal method of simply letting the ice melt would not work unless those in the region waited for several days. With little salt on hand, like the stockpiles in the northern states, the local highway departments needed to improvise using road graders and front loaders to dump gravel used in road construction and cinders from local incinerators to cover the highways to allow motorists to gain traction.

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Afghanistan is no stranger to winter cold and snow. Much of the country is mountainous and the higher terrain is conducive to bitter cold winter temperatures and snow. Major snow storms are not common – but not terribly unusual either. On January 11, 2008 a massive winter storm blasted the country with a wind wiped heavy snowfall. Dozens killed by the heavy snow and freezing weather as Snow blocked roads connecting remote areas to many of the cities and towns in the country. Around 35 employees of a construction company were trapped in an avalanche in Herat. The clean-up and resources from that avalanche and several others was problematic at best. The war-ravaged nation was still in the midst of bitter conflict and the ability to clean up the snowfall and protect against the cold was virtually impossible as those normal resources were consumed by the ongoing conflict – just another terrible by-product of war.

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The first week of January 1918 brought a persistent bitter cold the upper Midwest and the great lakes region. In many places high temperatures barely reached the freezing mark. Already storages brought on by World War I were being felt in the region with scarcity of fuel to heat homes. Then an even colder air mass that had been building across the arctic regions of Canada plunged southward into the northern tier of the United States. Meanwhile a storm was brewing in the southern states, as that system swept northward bringing plenty of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico along with it. The result was a Vast storm of blizzard proportions moved through Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. Toledo had 63 mph winds and a temperature drop from +28 degrees to -15 degrees as the storm pulled the arctic air southward behind it. The result was a Complete immobilization and no mail for 2 weeks in many parts of the Midwest.

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Snow, continuous and heavy with sustained winds estimated at 30-35 mph, gusting to 50-60 mph struck Edinboro, PA on January 10, 1982 as bitter cold air moved out of Canada and across the Great Lakes resulting in a massive diplay of Lake-effect snowfall. Mountainous drifts caused roads to be shut down. Between 3 and 4 feet of new snow, well above the waist on the level was reported. One report of a devastating “snow devil”. Miniature vortexes of wind can stir up snow in a formation known as a snow devil. Similar to a dirt devil, snow devils are spinning columns of snow. The reported stated that “It became dark at 4 pm, and a sudden strong gust of wind picked up a wall of snow and blew it about. It cleared somewhat, but then a definite funnel shaped vortex, swirling about at a rapid rate, knocked over an apple tree. The snow devil then proceeded to rip a 6-inch diameter cherry tree right out of the ground with the roots lying on top of the snow. The snow devil was about 20-25 feet in diameter and at least 100 feet tall. This was one of the most severe blizzards in this region in memory.”

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January 9, 1975 marked one of the coldest days across the parries of western Canada. Arctic cold had move out of Siberia and across Alaska and the Yukon and then southward. Along the southern fringes of the cold weather a storm laden with moisture from the Pacific Ocean had slammed into the pacific northwest of the United States and was moving eastward across Idaho and Montana. As the bitter cold air surged into the places like Winnipeg, Manitoba snow broke out. Fueled by the cold and that Pacific storm blizzard conditions quickly developed. As the snow piled up the airport in Winnipeg was forced to close and remained out of service for almost 2 days. Travel across the entire region ground to a halt as the blizzard reduced the visibility in Winnipeg to zero. People couldn’t even see a foot or two in front of them. The white-out continued for more than 12 hours.

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Bitter cold air moved westward out of Siberia in the first week of January 1981 and settled in across much of the European continent. Temperatures remained below freezing night and day in Germany and France and across the British isles and southward to the Mediterranean coast . Northern Italy and Greece were not spared the artic chill. On the southern end of the Siberian airmass a large storm formed in north Aricia and moved eastward. By the time the powerful storm reached the southern part of Greece it resulted in 4 days of wild weather from January 8-11. Snow fell in parts of Greece as well as Tunisia where 2" accumulated. This was the first snow in Tunisia in 26 years. There were floods in Turkey and dust storms in Libya. Travel in those areas that experienced snow on the Mediterranean coast experienced travel disruptions for days.

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