This Date in Weather History

On March 23, 1913 the rain started falling across the Mid-west and it didn’t stop for 4 days and 4 nights. The deluge resulted in epic flooding unequaled in American history before and after. Known as the Great Flood. The storm that formed in the nations mid-section had nowhere to move for several days, causing heavy rain over the four-day period between March 23 and March 26. By Wednesday, March 26, the storm moved east into Pennsylvania and New York, while heavy rain continued in the Ohio valley. The heaviest rainfall, 6 to 9, covered an area from southern Illinois into northwestern Pennsylvania. As the storm continued eastward, flooding began in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virginia. The Potomac River overflowed its banks in Maryland. 467 died in the floods and damage reached $147 million or almost $4 billion in 2020 dollars.

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The winter of 1935-1936 was a severe one with lower than normal temperatures. As of early March, it was estimated that the snowpack in Northern New England averaged about 7.5 inches of water. Deep snow also covered the ground across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York state. Early in March 1936, a warm, moisture-laden front moved into the area from the Ohio Valley to New England and stalled, warming temperatures as well as producing heavy rainfall. As the snow started to melt and the rains fell streams and rivers began to fill and the ground became soggy and saturated.. But this time almost the entire snow cover from New England had melted and with the ground already water logged and the rivers full serve flooding ensued. In many locations, this was the most severe flooding that has ever been experienced. The height of the flood when the waters peaked was March 22, 1936. Floods in Pittsburgh where more than 6” than ever recorded, almost 9 feet higher in Hartford and many other locations on that day would see flooding records not surpassed since. 107 lives were lost and $270 million dollars in damage or more than $5 billion in 2020 dollars.

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March 1868 started out relatively mild across the Eastern states. The winter of 1867-1868 had been a uniformly cold winter. Life was finally starting to get back to normal in the aftermath of the Civil War in the Northeastern states and the break in the winter early in March was welcomed as the harbinger of an early spring. In the middle of the month though, a storm took form across the nation’s midsection and as it rolled eastward arctic air moved out of western Canada, across the Great Lakes into the Northeast. With cold weather firmly in place the storm moved in and snow began to fall and quickly. Reports form the day indicted that 15-20” of snow fell at Philadelphia on March 21, Georgetown DE has an incredible 32” in just 16 hours. Many other parts of Delaware and New Jersey had close to 2 feet of the white stuff. The winter itself would go into the record books as the snowiest recorded up to that time. The storm on March 21, 1868 would bring seasonal snowfall totals to more than 80” in both New York City and Boston.

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Often times wave patterns develop in the high atmosphere, the strongest winds in these waves are represented by the jet stream. These waves in the air like waves in the ocean have high and low points over time and space. From a geographical perspective the high point usually supports high pressure and the low points low pressure or storms. On the western side of the high pressure of ridging it’s usually warm and winds blow from the south, close to the center of the low point or trough of the wave there is storminess. When patterns like this develop to the extreme with great definition contrast in the waves in the wintertime there can be awesome extremes. One such extreme case happened On March 20, 1948. A trough or dip in the wave caused a massive storm to hit Alaska dumping heavy snow in Juneau, the states capitol where 32.5” of snow fell the heaviest ever there. Meanwhile far to the east in the eastern part of the US a ridge or rise in the jet stream resulted in record warmth across the Carolinas in some places like Raleigh and Greensboro, NC the mercury barely dipped below 70 for a low temperature setting records for the warmest March night every recorded there.

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1958: On March 19, 1958. Rain began falling along the eastern seaboard as a weak storm moved across the Ohio Valley as that system approached the East Coast cold air was drawn into the storm from eastern Canada. The storm exploded. As it strengthened rapidly and the cold air settled southward all the way into the Mid-Atlantic states the rain changed to snow and more and more moisture was feed into the system from a strong jet stream that reached all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico.

More than foot of snow covered many of the big northeastern cities from Philadelphia to Boston. Many of the northern and eastern suburbs received almost 2 feet of snow from the storm that would go into the History books as the ‘Eve of Spring Snowstorm”. Just south of the snow area in Washington DC and Baltimore had record rainfall of almost 4”.

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On March 18, 1925 perhaps the greatest severe weather event in the last two centuries was brewing. By the time the day was over what would be known as the Tristate tornado produced the single most devastating tornado ever. The tornado began near Ellington, Missouri and averaged 62 mph in forward speed as it moved northeastward. The tornado was 1 mile wide and was on the ground for 219 miles the longest continuous tornado path ever observed. 85 farms were destroyed near Owensville, Indiana, and the entire town of Griffin, Indiana, was totally destroyed.

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The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in the towns of Lexington and Concord just west of Boston in April 1775. What started as a British victory as they looked for munitions stored by local militia turned into a British rout as American militia from all of New England converged on the area and drove the British back into Boston. Working all night on March 4 and into March 5, 1776 American forces moved the guns onto Dorchester heights that overlooked Boston. It gave the Colonials a commanding position that the British could not counter. British General William Howe then gathered some of his force of 11,000 troops onto ships to cross Boston harbor and attack the gun placements before they could be firmly established. Just as the troops had been loaded into the ships a huge storm hit and caused them to turn back. It gave the Americans time to firm up the guns and their advantage was established. The weather turned the tide. The British soon abandoned Boston, never to return during the rest of the Revolution. They evacuated on March 17, 1776, a day still celebrated in Boston.

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On March 16, 1843 one the first winter storms to be documented to sweep out of the Gulf and Mexico and impact must of the eastern part of the nation was observed. At the start of the second week of March in 1843 arctic air moved southward out of the vast snowfields of the Yukon, down the east slopes of the Rockies and then spread eastward to the Atlantic seaboard. The cold air held for the next few days and on its southern flank, well south in the Gulf of Mexico a storm started to organize. That system strengthened rapidly and then blasted up the east coast, but far enough out in the ocean to keep most mild ocean air away from land. The result was snow from the Gulf of Mexico to Maine. This great snowstorm dumped 8” in Little Rock, AR; 10" in Memphis, TN and a foot of snow in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Drifts reached 4-5 feet in New York City. Snow turned to rain then back to snow at Providence, RI. 4-6". All snow with punishing gales were recorded in Portland, ME.

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During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named "black blizzards". On March 15, 1935 one of the worst of these black blizzards stuck Amarillo, Texas with Suffocating dust;6 people died, many livestock starved or suffocated. Dust lay 6 feet deep in places.

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The term blizzard has found a significant spot in our language. A blizzard is officially defined as a storm with "considerable falling or blowing snow" and winds in excess of 35 mph with visibilities of less than 1/4 mile for at least 3 hours.  But the term wasn’t even invented until March 14 1870. The Editor of the Dakota Republican Vermillion South Dakota described the storm: "A violent snowstorm, driven by a heavy NW wind, and continued three whole days and nights. The weather was intensely cold and the heavy fall flying before a furious wind - blowing as only the prairie winds can blow - rendered traveling exceedingly uncomfortable and dangerous, if not almost impossible."

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