A storm for the ages

A storm for the ages

Bill McAuliffe
Minneapolis Star Tribune
November 10, 2010

There have been storms with more snow. There have been storms with cruel temperature drops, screaming winds and freakish barometer readings, and storms that have killed people and paralyzed the region for days.

But 70 years later, the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard still has a firm hold on the Minnesota imagination, perhaps because it was the last truly old-fashioned blizzard.

"I'm old enough to remember it," said weather historian Tom St. Martin of Woodbury, who recalled snow blowing under the doors and into the kitchen of his family's farmhouse in western Minnesota. "The forecasts of the day were just not good. People were unprepared for it.

"My guess is, like most historical events, it will fade a bit as time goes on," he said. "But as far as I know, it was one of the last ones with significant casualties."

In all, 49 people died in Minnesota in the three-day storm. Most weather watchers believe it's unlikely to happen again, due to factors ranging from better forecasting to better cars and clothing.

No one saw it coming

In 1940, weather forecasting was approaching significant breakthroughs. World War II would bring the discovery of the jet stream and an understanding that radar could find precipitation in the sky. But U.S. entry into the war was still 13 months away. The first computers, well-suited to the vast amount of data involved in tracking weather and building forecast models, wouldn't be built until just after the war. Forecasting in 1940 was still a vague and primitive exercise, centralized in a few government offices around the United States -- not including the Twin Cities.

Somehow, the fact that a storm approaching from the west had already snapped the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington wasn't reflected in forecasts for Nov. 11, 1940, for the Midwest. The forecast for Armistice Day called for only colder temperatures and a chance of snow flurries. The Chicago office of the National Weather Service, which issued forecasts for the Upper Midwest, actually had no one on duty the night of Nov. 10.

Hunters all over Minnesota awoke on what was a holiday Monday to find temperatures around 40 degrees and ducks (who many later thought probably knew what was coming) flying thick and fast over the prairies and sloughs.

Soon, of course, a misty rain turned to a driving snow, trapping hundreds of hunters on islands in the Mississippi River, where many died. The storm dropped 26 inches of snow at Collegeville and 16.8 inches in the Twin Cities and formed concrete-like drifts that cars could drive on afterward. Some drifts at Willmar were measured at 20 feet tall.

Ralph Nistler, a 6-year-old then who grew up to be a meteorologist, recalls riding in his dad's car through the storm south of St. Cloud, while his older brother stood on the running boards, shouting to his dad to tell him where the edge of the road was.

Visibility in downtown Minneapolis was zero for seven hours straight during the storm. Metro area streets were choked by cars abandoned in snow that drifted to the rooftops. Streetcars and buses that managed to keep running often needed hours to navigate a few blocks; some residents brought hot meals to commuters stuck on them. Those whose streetcars didn't show up at all, or who got off to start walking, were blown into building walls or reduced to crawling. Hundreds stayed in downtown hotels, bars and even gas stations. In Watkins, two people were killed when a passenger train and a freight train collided after an engineer had missed a signal in the heavy snow. Winds in Duluth blew at 63 mph. In the Twin Cities, the temperature fell from 38 to 10 on Nov. 11, and rose only to 11 the next day.

Could it ever happen again?

Minnesota was a far different place then. A greater share of the population lived on farms and in small cities. All telephones were land lines, and not everybody had those. There was no Twitter. There wasn't even television.

There were no interstate highways. Most cars weren't as capable in snow as they are now. Even prepared hunters and travelers wore water-absorbent wool, not the lightweight, waterproof, insulating fabrics of today's outerwear.

A classic November storm like the Armistice Day blizzard could still develop, said University of Minnesota Extension meteorologist Mark Seeley. The increasing strength might be hard to estimate ahead of time, Seeley said, but the public would be prepared. Radar and the broad network of forecast agencies and the public would spot it coming. Meteorologists understand storm dynamics much better today. National Weather Service offices now communicate with one another continually, covering what were huge gaps in awareness 70 years ago.

Forecasts for regions of Minnesota are now issued by offices in the Twin Cities; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Grand Forks, N.D.; Duluth. Minn.; and La Crosse, Wis. That is an indirect result of the Armistice Day blizzard.

The 1940 blizzard gave Minnesotans bragging rights, Seeley said. But after another blizzard the following March killed 32 people in Minnesota, "that just really got people up in arms," he said. "And the Minnesota congressional delegation went berserk. They humiliated the weather service on the floor of the House." Soon, the Twin Cities had a forecast office of its own, operating round-the-clock.

The number of survivors of the Armistice Day blizzard is dwindling. But, unlike the great prairie blizzards that preceded it, it met a people who were eager to write the stories down and take loads of pictures. Bigger snows may come along -- and get plowed away -- but the volumes of written and oral narratives and stacks of still-breathtaking photos from Nov. 11-13, 1940, are likely to keep it high in Minnesota's weather memory.

Nistler, meanwhile, said he doesn't tire of being asked about it.

"After you've gone through it and refreshed memory every year, it still seems vivid."

Jesus, that is scary. We had something similar in 1987. That storm reached hurricane proportions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987.

There was no snow with that one obviously, because it was still so warm.

This past winter saw the worst blizzards in living memory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_2009%E2%80%932010_in_the_United_Kingdom. 25 people died as a result of the weather, 40,000 died indirectly.

I remember all of that stuff you guys had. Yeesh.

We're far from having a cold winter here in recent memory. We've had a mild fall but it's cold today here. Snow by the weekend they say. Right on schedule.

Incidents like this make us realise just how much at the mercy of the elements we really are. (no hints dropped about climate change denialists, I promise )