This Date in Weather History

June 1, 1965: The World Health Organization reports that nation of Bangladesh is especially vulnerable to tropical cyclones, known as hurricane near the United State, because of its location at the triangular shaped head of the Bay of Bengal, the sea-level geography of its coastal area, its high population density and the lack of coastal protection systems. During the pre-monsoon season in April and May or post-monsoon season in October and November, cyclones frequently hit the coastal regions of Bangladesh. About 40% of the total global storm surges are recorded in Bangladesh, and the deadliest cyclones in the past 50 years, in terms of deaths and casualties, are those that have struck Bangladesh. In 1965, just as the pre-monsoon season was winding down disaster struck the region. A tropical cyclone blasted northward and pushed a wall of water storm surge across the flat low lands of the region. Because the land only rises a few feet above sea levels for scores of miles inland flood waters quickly inundate the region, sweeping away everything in their path and giving no quarter for people to escape, the result can be and has been a massive loss of life. On June 1, 1965 such a tropical system struck the region with a death toll estimated near 30,000.

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May 31, 1889: Johnstown, Pennsylvania, lies hard against the Conemaugh River in its deep valley in the western part of the state. Founded in 1770, it grew quickly as the Civil War approached, fortunes were made in iron, coal and steel. By 1860, the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown was the leading steel producer in the United States, outproducing steel giants in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. After the war it became the center of America’s growing industrial might and the site of many struggles by workers for recognition. High above the city, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built a dam between 1838 and 1853, as part of a cross-state canal system, creating Lake Conemaugh the reservoir behind the dam. As railroads superseded canal barge transport, the Commonwealth abandoned the canal and sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The dam and lake were part of the purchase, and the railroad sold them to private interests.  A group of speculators, from Pittsburgh purchased the abandoned reservoir, modified it, and converted it into a private resort club for some of those that had made their fortunes in local industry. Development included lowering the dam to make its top wide enough to hold a road, and putting a fish screen in the spillway that also trapped debris. These alterations are thought to have increased the vulnerability of the dam. Moreover, a system of relief pipes and valves, a feature of the original dam, previously sold off for scrap, was not replaced, so the club had no way of lowering the water level in the lake in case of an emergency. Floods were almost a yearly event in the Conemaugh valley during the 1880s. On the afternoon of May 30, 1889, following a quiet Memorial Day, it began raining in the valley. The next day May 31, 1889 water filled the streets, and rumors began that a dam holding an artificial lake in the mountains to the northeast might give way. It did, and an estimated 20 million tons of water began spilling into the Conemaugh River valley that led to Johnstown 14 miles away. The destruction in Johnstown occurred in only about 10 minutes. What had been a thriving steel town with homes, churches, saloons, a library, a railroad station, electric street lights, was buried under mud and debris. Out of a population of approximately 30,000 at the time, at least 2,209 people are known to have perished in the disaster. Compounding the disaster and contributing to the death toll was a major fire that burned much of what was left of the city. The flood established the American Red Cross as the pre-eminent emergency relief organization in the United States. Founder Clara Barton, came to Johnstown with 50 doctors and nurses and set up tent hospitals as well as temporary "hotels" for the homeless, and stayed on for five months to coordinate relief efforts. The people of Johnston were resilient and the town came back from the brink. The people never forgot the aid the nation gave to them and when the great Galveston Hurricane hit Texas and killed more than 6,000 people in 1900 the people of the city of Johnston contributed more money than any other city in the United States despite not even ranking in the top 100 cities in population.

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May 30, 1879: The town of Irving, Kansas in the northeastern part of the state was a growing farm community with several hundred residents. Today, though Irving is a ghost town. On May 30, 1879, two tornadoes destroyed most of the town, leaving 19 dead and many more injured. Some residents left Irving, but the town was rebuilt, and new businesses arrived, allowing Irving to regain its prominence as a local agricultural center. During the summer of 1903, the Big Blue River flooded and destroyed homes, crops and bridges. The river threatened to do it again in 1908 but the townspeople were prepared and were able to keep the river within its banks. In 1910 the population was estimated at 403 and boasted "good banking facilities, a weekly newspaper, telegraph and express offices, grade schools, a public library, and churches. After plans for the construction of the Tuttle Creek Dam were announced, the population declined and many businesses, including the post office, closed. The townsite was abandoned in 1960 after the dam was constructed. The town fell victim to the ways of the weather on the great plans and what some would term – progress. Still the town lives on. It turns out that one of those who unfortunately died in the 1879 tornado was a young woman named Dorothy Gale, who was found without her shoes. Passing through the region just after the tornado was traveling salesman-turned-author Frank Baum. He would use the story to inspire him to write a book and the name of Dorothy would live on in his famous work, The Wizard of Oz.

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May 29, 1914: From 1900 until 1914 almost 100,000 passengers in ocean liners, crossed the Atlantic to Canada, mainly from Great Britain. The main port of entry and embarkation to and from Canada was Quebec City, on the St Lawrence River. Many of the ocean-going passenger ship were huge, not quite rivaling the Titanic, but able to transport almost 1,500 passengers back and forth across the Atlantic. On the morning of May 29, 1914, a thick river fog formed quickly on the surface of the St Lawrence and extending almost 100 feet in the air. River fog can form when the sun heats the air just above the surface of the river all day long. The air near the river becomes much cool on clear nights especially in the spring because the water is still rather chilly from the winter season, so it condenses into a fog cloud. That happened on the morning of May 29 just as the Ocean Liner Empress steamed on the river. Visibility had rapidly decreased and it was hard to see other river traffic as it headed for the open sea. In short order it was struck another ship The Storstad. In this horrific maritime disaster, over a thousand passengers on route from Quebec to Liverpool were lost in just fifteen minutes—the length of time it took for the ocean liner to sink to the bottom of the Saint Lawrence River. There was a misunderstanding between the two captains about their respective ships’ positioning and direction, leading to the fatal collision. The Storstad hit The Empress of Ireland broadside, tearing a 350 square foot hole in her hull. With water pouring in at 60 gallons per second, the ship sank rapidly. Hundreds of sleeping passengers were trapped, and the second- and third-class passengers had much less of a chance at survival than the first-class passengers, as first class was higher up on the ship. Out of 1,477 passengers, only 465 survived. And out of 138 children that were on board, only four survived. Overshadowed by the breakout of World War I two months later, known as Canada’s Titanic, the tragedy of The Empress was almost swept under the rug. Today, The Empress of Ireland is accessible to divers, at only 130 feet below the surface. It has been visited by those experienced enough to dive in such cold temperatures hundreds of times since the ship’s rediscovery in the mid-1980s.

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May 28, 1880: Brackettville, the county seat of Kinney County in Texas, is on U.S. Highway 90 twenty-two miles northeast of the Rio Grande and 125 miles west of San Antonio. It is named after Oscar Brackett, who established the first general dry goods store near the site of Forth Clark in 1852. Brackett, as it was called originally, was established on the San Antonio-El Paso Road, and by 1857 its Sargent Hotel and small restaurant were a regular stop for the San Antonio-San Diego stage line. The Texas State Historical Association reports that the community experienced a period of steady growth after the Civil War, attracting cattle rustlers, buffalo hunters and gamblers a true town of the wild west. In 1868 Brackett had ten homes and a population of fifty. It was designated the county seat of Kinney County when the county was established in 1876. Brackettville enjoyed a period of exceptional prosperity during the period by 1878, as nearby Fort Clark swelled with thousands of soldiers. The town grew rapidly, and many businesses, constructed of limestone blocks quarried nearby, were established. The population soared to near 1,500 and seemed on the way to prosperity. But on May 28, 1880 dry air sweeping in from New Mexico met up with moisture streaming out of the Gulf of Mexico. The dynamics of the weather system produced a cloudburst that dumped more than a foot of rain in less than 2 hours devastating the town. Much of the town was rebuilt on higher ground nearby , but it would never be the same again. Despite the population of Texas increasing from 1.5M in 1880 to almost 30M today, 20 times increase, Brackettville’s population remains close to its total from 140 years ago.

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1896: In 1896 St. Louis was listed as the 5th largest city in the United States, trailing New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and what was then the separate city of Brooklyn. More than half a million people lived there on the banks of the Mississippi River. The morning of May 27, 1896 dawned calm and steamy and belied what was coming that afternoon. One of the greatest natural disasters to strike one of the largest US cities was awaiting residents in the afternoon. In what remains the third most deadly tornado in U.S. history struck St. Louis, on the afternoon of May 27, 1896. According to the National Centers for Environmental Education; shortly before five o’clock that Wednesday afternoon, the devastating tornado struck the city from the southwest, near the Compton Heights district. From there, the tornado made its way down the Mill Creek Valley, destroying countless homes as it headed toward the Mississippi River. Once the tornado made it to the Mississippi, it decimated the steamboats and other vessels in the harbor, breaking them to pieces and scattering them from the Missouri shore to the Illinois shore. Even the Eads Bridge, which was considered “tornado proof” as the first major bridge constructed by making use of true steel, was damaged by the powerful tornado with nearly 300 feet of its eastern approach being torn away. Much of the central portion of St. Louis was also destroyed, as were factories, saloons, hospitals, mills, railroad yards, and churches throughout the city. Across St. Louis, the tornado completely destroyed block after block of residential housing. Hundreds of miles of electric wires and thousands of telephone and telegraph poles were torn down by the fierce winds. The tornado also uprooted trees more than half a century old and hurled them a distance of several blocks. Heavy iron fences, like the one that surrounded Lafayette Park, were twisted and tangled until they were nearly unrecognizable. During the less than half an hour that the tornado was on the ground, it tracked a three-mile-wide path of destruction across St. Louis, killing 255 people, injuring 1,000, and rendering countless families homeless.

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May 26, 2008: The term Pneumonia front, first coined by Milwaukee Weather Bureau Office in the 1960s, is used to describe a rare meteorological phenomenon observed on the western Lake Michigan shoreline during the warm season. These fronts are defined as lake-modified small scale cold fronts that result in one-hour temperature drops of 16 °F or greater. They do not necessarily have to be large scale, cold fronts to bring weather changes to an entire region. Very often in the spring to early summer the temperature difference between the cold lake waters and the warmer air over land can be as much as 35–40 °F . Under weak prevailing winds, an air current can often develop in the form of a lake breeze that moves from that water to the adjacent shoreline and several miles inland. This "lake-breeze cold front" can drop temperature in places like Chicago, Milwaukee and Green Bay significantly as they cross the area. There has been many a spring day at Wrigley Field that surprises Cub fans who may have travelled from an inland location toward the shore to take in an afternoon game, only to feel the effects of the "pneumonia front" as that cold blast of air comes through. On May 26, 2008 such a front caused temperatures to drop in Chicago from 72 at 10 pm to 55 an hour later. Winds had gone from light and westerly to northeasterly with gusts up to 40 mph along the lake. Other areas along the lake dropped from the mid 76 to the upper 47. 

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May 25, 1987: The number of people killed by lightning in recent years a far cry from annual lightning deaths decades ago: In the 1940s, for instance, hundreds of people were killed each year by lightning. In 1943 alone, 432 people died. The sharp drop in lightning deaths over the past 75 years " coincides with a shift in population from rural to urban regions," wrote meteorologist Ronald Holle in an article in the Journal of Applied Meteorology. In the 1940s, "there were many, many more small farmers who were out working in fields," which meant many more chances to be struck by lightning, Jensenius said. In addition to better lightning safety awareness and medical advances, all phones were corded decades ago, leading to quite a few deaths due to people speaking on the phone. Additionally, there has been better lightning protection, suppression and grounding in electrical and phone lines, he said. But on May 25, 1987 as a line of heavy thunderstorms crossed Louisiana a group of men fishing in Lake struggled to get to shore out of harm’s way as they approached the shore a man standing in a ski boat was struck and killed by lightning. News reports claim the man had said, "Here I am, come get me" when he was suddenly struck. 4 companions were not injured. 

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May 24, 1986: Another Spring Day and another round of wild weather in the state of Texas. Severe weather is most prevalent in Texas in the Spring and May 24, 1986 was no different, severe thunderstorms blasted the area. Damage was heaviest from just north of Downtown Fort Worth across the east side of town to southwest of Arlington where a roof collapsed over portions of a bowling alley injuring seven people. Windows blown in and roof damage at motel across the street. Hail as large as golf balls blew in drifts two feet deep in spots. 3-5“ of rain fell in one hour, flooding many city streets in Arlington as well. A 29-year-old woman and her 6-year-old daughter drowned in their car, which was found submerged in an underpass. Other reports indicated that more than 3” of rain fell in one hour at Newark in Wise County. 95 mph winds were reported at WBAP Radio, Tarrant County. Baseball size hail fell near Ivan, Stephens County. 

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May 23, 1908: By May 23, 1908 4-8" of rain fallen across much of northern and central Texas in the preceding days on already saturated land especially on the upper Trinity and Brazos River Basins. The rise in the rivers continued for several days toward the end of the month. Large crowds of onlookers gathered on bridges all over Texas the view the unusual site of rising rivers. Most times the rivers were almost dry trickles or brief raging white water torrents spurred on by brief cloudbursts from thunderstorms. But the days and days of steady rains in the part of the state brought something unusual in the form of broad rising rivers not seen by most of the growing populace of Texas. Record floods resulted from the rain at Grand Prairie (30.6'), Dallas (52.6'), and Rosser (38.0'). 3 people drowned in Fort Worth and 8 in Dallas. 

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