This Date in Weather History

This Date in Weather History

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This Date in Weather History episodes

  • 1948: Tornado strikes Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City
    Tornado Alley is that area in the United States that has more tornados than anywhere else in the world. Stretching from central Texas to Eastern South Dakota. Tornados are more likely in Texas and Oklahoma in the Spring, and then they are more numerous in the northern plains in the summertime. Fed by the contrast between moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and super dry air that blows down off the Rockies, and the contrast in temperatures between the ground surface and midlevels in the atmosphere, severe weather development is primed. This is most common in Tornado Alley, and more common in southern areas early in the season. Oklahoma’s most active month is May, but March is the 4th most active of the year. Averaging almost as many tornados as July, August and September put together. It’s not unusual then for tornado to strike the same part of Oklahoma more than once in March. But what happened on this date in weather history on March 25, 1948 was unusual. A tornado struck Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City destroying 35 airplanes. Just 5 days earlier a tornado had also struck the air base destroying 50 airplanes.

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    2 min
  • 1912: 25" of snow falls in Kansas City, MO
    It had been fairly snowy across Kansas and Missouri in the 1911-1912 winter season. By the later stages of March, Kansas City already had recorded more than 40” of snow including 15” earlier in March alone. Average snowfall for an entire season is about 15” so the city already had well above its normal snowfall. Milder weather had made several attempts to move into that part of the nation during March, but cold air held firm and so it was cold on March 23, 1912 as a storm spun up in the southern Rockies. That’s system moved eastward pulling moisture from the Gulf of Mexico ahead of it and skirted along the southern edge of the cold air mass that was in place across the Plains states. As the storm moved through Texas, Kansas City was deep in the cold air. Snow began to fall in the afternoon of the 23rd and by the time it ended on the evening of March 24, 1912 Kansas City experienced its greatest snowstorm on record. 25” fell in 24 hours bringing the total snowfall there to more than 40” for March and 67” for the winter more than 4 times normal. Both the March and seasonal snowfall totals were records for Kansas City. Not far away in Olathe, KS 38” fell during that storm, a single storm state record.

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    3 min
  • 1913: The Great Flood

    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 system that produced the flood in late March 1913 began with a typical winter storm pattern, but developed characteristics that promoted heavy rain and at times sleet and snow. As the storm gained strength on Sunday, March 23, high winds, hail, sleet, and tornadoes settled in across a vast swath of the nation’s mid-section. Major tornadoes hit Omaha, Nebraska where 94 died; also hit were Lone Peach, Arkansas; and Terre Haute, Indiana. On Monday and Tuesday, March 24 and 25, 3 to 8 inches of rain fell in Ohio, Indiana, and southern Illinois. Major rivers in Indiana and Ohio experienced heavy runoff. Downstream, where the Ohio River enters the Mississippi River, the water level broke record highs. By Tuesday, March 25, the Ohio River and its tributaries flooded cities such as Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Youngstown and Columbus. Dayton, Ohio, was particularly hard-hit. On 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 2022 dollars.






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    3 min
  • 1936: Melting snow leads to massive flooding
    The winter of 1935-1936 was a severe one with lower than normal temperatures in the eastern half of the United States. As of early March, it was estimated that the snowpack in Northern New England contained an average of about 7.5 inches of water – the equivalent of almost 100” of snow. Deep snow also covered the ground across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York state. Early in March 1936, a warm, moisture-laden storm moved into the area from the Ohio Valley to New England and stalled 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. A second moisture laden storm moved into the same region on March 18th and continued into the 20th. Again, the combination of heavy rain and melting snow resulted in more flooding. But this time almost the entire snow cover in New England melted, and with the ground already water-logged and the rivers full, severe 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. The flood in Pittsburgh was more than 6 feet, higher than ever recorded, almost 9 feet higher in Hartford, Conn. 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 2022 dollars.

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    3 min
  • 1868: Late-March snowstorm slams East coast
    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 indicated 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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    2 min
  • 1948: 32.5" of heavy snow falls in Juneau, AK

    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 or 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 from one storm. 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 ever recorded there.




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    2 min
  • 1958: The "Eve of Spring Snowstorm"
    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 was pulled southward all the way into the Mid-Atlantic states, the rain changed to snow and more and more moisture was fed into the system from a strong jet stream that reached all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico. When the rain started in March 19th temperatures were well up into the 40s. By the night of the 19th temperatures had sagged down to near freezing. The snow picked up in intensity and continued for the next several days. Most of the time the ratio of water content to the amount of the mid-Atlantic states is 10 to 1. That is for every inch of water there is about 10” of snow. In this situation though, later in March, with temperatures at or above freezing that ratio was more than 4 to 1 or even 3 to I. That meant the snow was much heavier than usual the result would soon play itself out with collapsed roofs and buildings as they yielded to the sheer weight of the snow. When the snowfall was over more than foot of the white stuff 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” and flooding.

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    2 min
  • 1925: The Tri-State Tornado
    Early spring often brings the most violent weather to the nation’s midsection of the entire year. High in the atmosphere, up where the jet stream is, temperatures can still be almost as cold as they are in mid-winter, yet down on the ground temperatures can soar to at times close to summer-time levels. The extreme temperature contrast, that occurs at no other time of the year, combined with turning winds from the surface up into higher levels of the air leads to the formation of severe thunderstorms and multiple tornados. 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. A total of 695 deaths were reported with 2,027 injured there alone from that single tornado alone. There was $16.5 million worth of damage or almost a quarter of a billion in 2021 dollars. 11 other tornadoes the same day killed 50 more elsewhere, including 33 at a school in Desoto, IL.

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    2 min
  • 1776: Weather impacts the Revolutionary War
    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 rout as American militia from all of New England converged on the area and drove the British back into Boston. The British attempted to break out of Boston at the Battle of Bunker Hill some months later and even though they won because the Americans ran out of ammunition, the victory came at a terrible cost of dead and wounded, British General Clinton said that more British victories like that would actually put an end to British rule in America. So the British sat in Boston for almost a year. Meanwhile George Washington took control of the American Army and sent colonial artillery expert Henry Knox to Fort Ticonderoga in New York state to bring southward huge cannons from the fort. Working all night on March 4 and into March 5, 1776 American forces moved the guns onto Dorchester heights that overlooked Boston from the south. It gave the Colonials a commanding position that the British could not counter. But British General William Howe wanted to give it a go anyway, he 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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    3 min
  • 1843: Snowstorm from Gulf of Mexico to Maine

    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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    2 min

About This Date in Weather History

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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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