This Date in Weather History

On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore north of Atlantic City, New Jersey. 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.

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A potent coastal storm slammed the Northeast with strong winds, soaking rains and burying snow struck 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.  

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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. Colder air must be in place from the east the usually originated in Russia. Occasionally in the middle of the winter that occurs and ever 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.

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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

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The SS Princess Sophia sank on Oct. 25, 1918, with estimates of the death toll ranging up to 367. Nobody on board survived, save one pet dog who swam to shore. The ship was one of four coastal liners operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway, all named for princesses. The Princess Sophia had departed Skagway, Alaska, on Oct. 23, 1918, with stops planned in Juneau, Wrangell and Ketchikan before going to Prince Rupert, Alert Bay and eventually Vancouver. The following day at 2 a.m., south of Skagway and 40 miles north of Juneau, the Princess Sophia struck a reef. Slightly off course in bad weather of fog and snow, it was going full steam, rode up onto the rocks and struck aground. The great ship remained stuck for 40 hours, enough time for rescue boats to arrive. But stormy conditions and high tides made it too risky to abandon ship. Rescue boat crews chose to return to port and come back the following day, the 26th, when weather was expected to improve. But in the meantime, the Princess Sophia was lifted off the reef and sank, leaving no survivors. The bad weather had not only caused the wreck, but prevented the rescue.

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Hurricane Wilma made landfall as a Category 3 system near Key West, and later near Everglades City, Florida On October 24, 2005. Wilma had earlier made landfall on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 4 system. Wilma, the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, reached a low pressure of 26.04 inches, surpassing the previous Atlantic record holder of Gilbert. Wilma, the first Atlantic storm to use the letter “W” formed as a Tropical Depression southwest of Jamaica on October 15th, becoming a hurricane on October 18th and later becoming the 5th Category 5 hurricane of the season. Wilma produced a storm surge of 4’ to 8’, flooded portions of the Key’s dropped 10 tornadoes over Florida and yielded 3” to 7” of rain across Florida. Wilma directly was attributed to 5 deaths in Florida, knocked power out to 98 percent of South Florida and produced an estimated $12.2 billion in damage.

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In 1878, a storm formed near Jamaica then became a Category 2 hurricane and moved right up the East coast. The center passed east of Florida, then came ashore in eastern North Carolina on October 23 1878 and stayed inland until it turned almost straight east over the southern parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. There was extensive damage from the Carolinas to New England, and more than 71 people were killed. This storm came to be known as the Gale of '78. A storm in modern times with a track like the Gale of ‘78 would be disastrous in the Middle Atlantic states, threatening death and serious injury and causing billions of dollars in damage. Hurricane Hazel in 1954 took a similar track, all the rest of the hurricanes with somewhat similar tracks occurred in the 19th century.

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On October 22, 1969 cold air was firmly in place as a storm moved up the east coast of the United States. The result was an early season heavy snowstorm; the heaviest and earliest in New England in almost 50 years. Rochester, Vermont had 12"; with even more in mountain areas. Some Vermont ski resorts actually had limited skiing on the 23rd. The 5.1" at Burlington, VT was a 24-hour October record. Portland, ME had an early season record of 3.6".

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An area of thunderstorms formed on the west coast of Africa in mid-October 1988 just as swarms of locusts were inundating the region. The storms had loosely held together until they reached the central Atlantic Ocean a few days later were conditions where favorable for further tropical development. The system rapidly developed into Tropical storm and then Hurricane Joan. Winds high in the atmosphere carried and Hurricane Joan across the Atlantic to Dominica, St. Lucia, Jamaica, and other nearby islands. In addition to heavy rains, Joan brought those islands something else from the sky on October 21, 1988, locusts. Apparently carried into the atmosphere by winds blowing from those thunderstorms that formed on the African coast days earlier, the locusts survived the trip across the Atlantic and found a new home in the Caribbean.

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On October. 20, 1991, the hills across the bay from San Francisco were cloaked in smoke. Flames moved up the steep slopes of Oakland and Berkeley, California, What became known as the Diablo Fire had started on Saturday, October 19, from an incompletely extinguished grass fire in the Berkeley Hills. Firefighters fought the 5-acre fire on a steep hillside and by Saturday night they thought it was under control.  The fire re-ignited as a brush fire shortly before 11 a.m. on Sunday, October 20 and rapidly spread southwest, driven by wind gusts up to 65 mph. It quickly overwhelmed local and regional firefighting resources.

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