White Death
A blinding barrage of snowflakes was driven by strong winds which wrapped schoolgirls’ skirts around their legs, frightfully impairing efforts of the youngsters to reach safety. Battling the powerful force of the stiff cold air currents, and stumbling through the reduced visibility of the fierce snowy gale, young Avis “was down more than up,” and her hands froze painfully during the lengthy one-block trip to her house.
—Dick Taylor, The Schoolhouse Blizzard
During the 1870s, settlers flocked to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions by the thousands. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 and numerous other railroads opened access to homesteaders and farmers. Meanwhile, wars with indigenous Americans had been winding down ever since the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn spurred the U.S. Army to force Native Americans onto reservations. Hunters had been steadily slaughtering the bison herds at the rate of millions a year, so that by the early 1880s, the great sea of bison that once covered the plains were nearly extinct. Civilization was rapidly coming to the Wild West, and with the invention of barbed wire, even the long cattle drives to railheads like Dodge City, Kansas, were coming to an end.
The railroad companies had made huge profits off the land Congress had originally given them. Along with many other land hucksters and swindlers, they heavily advertised the Great Plains and Rockies as a paradise ready to be farmed, plowed, and turned into fertile green valleys. These misleading promotions claimed that the climate was mild and the lands well watered, even though as early as the 1860s, John Wesley Powell had argued that “The Great American Desert” would never be wet enough to support full-scale agriculture without dams and irrigation. The popular myth was that “rain follows the plow,” so if a farmer plowed the land, it somehow released moisture and triggered more frequent rain in formerly dry country. In the words of promoter Charles Dana Wilber:
God speed the plow … By this wonderful provision, which is only man’s mastery over nature, the clouds are dispensing copious rains … [the plow] is the instrument which separates civilization from savagery; and converts a desert into a farm or garden … To be more concise, Rain follows the plow. (The West Film Project and WETA 2001)
During the 1870s, an abnormally long wet spell made the Great Plains and Rockies unusually green, and farmers and cattlemen were able to sustain themselves. It turned out that this wetter climate was short term, and by the early 1880s, the West began to revert to its normal hot, dry summer conditions. Soon, cattle were starving all over the plains and dying from lack of fodder. Ranchers and farmers who had homesteaded the region saw their investments wiped out.
The final blow came when the climate reverted not only to its normal dry conditions but also went through a cold snap in the 1880s that produced blizzards and freezing conditions that lasted months. This was the last gasp of the Little Ice Age, a climatic cooling cycle that had chilled much of the Northern Hemisphere since the 1600s. The winter of 1880–1881 was particularly harsh, with blizzard after blizzard killing hundreds and stranding settlers who suffered extreme privation and starvation. These events were vividly portrayed by Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie and seven other books in the Little House series. In The Long Winter, Wilder described how her snowbound family nearly froze and starved to death while stranded in De Smet, South Dakota, for many months. The blizzards began in early October before most of the crops had been harvested and never seemed to let up, lasting for two or three days each with only a few days of clear, cold weather in-between. When the trapped trains finally were able to break through in May, the residents of De Smet celebrated Christmas (and their survival)—and their Thanksgiving turkey was still frozen. The terrible winter of 1880–1881 is also described in O. E. Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth, an award-winning tale of immigrant Norwegian farmers in the Dakota Territory, who suffered horribly during the blizzards.
The final blow came during the winters of 1886–1888. The previous droughts and hard winters had put the cattle business in jeopardy, and the herds were thin and weak. Overgrazing had depleted the once fertile grasslands of the Great Plains, and sheep were competing with the cattle for grass. Beef prices were falling, so ranchers were on the edge of financial disaster. The first snow came on November 13, 1886, and did not let up for a month. Then, in January 1887, the Great Plains were pounded by incredible blizzards, with howling gale force winds and temperatures well below freezing. The cattle, which before had always been able to survive in the open range during winter, were trapped by the deep snow and unable to find shelter to survive the days of subfreezing winds and blizzards (figs. 8.1, 8.2). Some cattle were too weak to stand and were literally blown over. Others froze to death as they stood, buried deep in snow. The rancher Teddy Blue Abbott wrote, “It was all so slow, plunging after them through the deep snow that way … The horses’ feet were cut and bleeding from the heavy crust, and the cattle had the hair and hide wore off their legs to the knees and hocks. It was surely hell to see big four-year-old steers just able to stagger along” (The West Film Project and WETA 2001).
Fig. 8.1. During the blizzards of the 1880s, this scene of a dying steer freezing in a blizzard was a common sight. (Courtesy NOAA Photo Library)
Finally, the spring thaws came, and with them a grisly scene of devastation. Hundreds of carcasses of cattle were spread across the range, slowly thawing and then rotting in the sun, as wolves, coyotes, and vultures feasted. As the snowmelt continued, rivers flooded, and the bloated carcasses of cattle clogged the rivers as they floated downstream. Rancher Lincoln Lang wrote, “[I saw] countless carcasses of cattle going down with the ice, rolling over and over as they went, sometimes with all four stiffened legs pointed skyward. For days on end … went Death’s cattle roundup” (The West Film Project and WETA 2001). The winters of 1886–1887 and 1887–1888 came to be known by the ranchers as “The Great Die-Up” because so many livestock lost their lives. Most of the ranchers were wiped out and sold their land claims and their remaining herds to recoup their losses and find another way to make a living.
Fig. 8.2. The great Dakota blizzard of March 1966 was almost a repeat of the 1886– 1888 blizzards. Shown here are hundreds of cattle dead from freezing, Brookings, South Dakota. (Courtesy NOAA Photo Library)
With these events, the great age of big, open-range cattle ranches on the plains was transformed, as surviving ranchers learned to cope with smaller herds and smaller confined range lands, or diversified into other businesses. The era of open-range cattle drives and the corresponding rancher lifestyle, which future president Theodore Roosevelt once romanticized as “the pleasantest, healthiest and most exciting phase of American existence” (Roosevelt 1888, 24) was no more. Roosevelt had come to the North Dakota Badlands to make a living as a rancher in 1884. He fled there to heal from his grief and bereavement after his wife and mother had died on the same night, February 14, 1884. Roosevelt became a successful and colorful rancher for three years, but events soon drove him out of the West. Like nearly everyone else, Roosevelt lost his $60,000 investment in his ranch during the winter of 1886–1887, sold out, and returned East. Upon his return, he remarried and resumed his political career, but his ranching days and “Roughrider” friends were always part of his past and his image.
One of the final events of the terrible plains winter of 1887–1888 was the Schoolhouse Blizzard, or Children’s Blizzard. After a snowstorm across the Great Plains on January 5 and 6, 1888, temperatures warmed up remarkably to above freezing on January 12, 1888, as warm moist Gulf air moved over the northern plains and upper Midwest. Then a huge Arctic cold front swept down from the north, and temperatures dropped to –40°C (–40°F) in a matter of hours. It struck during the morning of January 12 in Montana, by midday in the Dakotas, and in the early afternoon in Nebraska. Children were still in school, so the sudden blizzard trapped many of them in their one-room country schoolhouses. Because it had been so mild (for January) and the storm had hit suddenly, many people were trapped far from their homes without adequate winter clothing. More than 500 people died of hypothermia, trapped in the snow and unable to reach shelter. The storm lingered for days, shutting off train travel and other transportation, so it was some time before all the frozen corpses were found and retrieved.
There are many accounts of the Schoolhouse Blizzard. One is from the historian of Pawnee County, Nebraska, Dick Taylor:
On her way home from elementary school classes on Thursday afternoon, January 12, at Table Rock, Neb., 11-year-old Avis Dopp was caught in the fury of the violent winter assault … Flora Dopp, a former nurse, [later] revived her suffering daughter’s agonized hands in cold water, while the girl believed her fingernails were starting to come off.
… The winter sky cleared just before dusk, Avis later remembered, after three or four feet of snow had fallen and the strong winds had caused drifting. In the aftermath of the massive blizzard, Seymour H. Dopp kept his 17 pupils protected overnight in the country schoolhouse, where they had stockpiled fuel for a warm fire, and sheltered his faithful riding horse in the chilly enclosure of an unheated cob shed. (www.wintercenter.homestead.com)
The stories of the Schoolhouse Blizzard were tragic. In Plainview, Nebraska, the schoolhouse ran out of fuel for heating and began to freeze about 3 p.m. Teacher Lois Royce attempted to take her students to her own boardinghouse, only 75 m (82 yards) away. But the snow and wind were so bad and the visibility so poor that they all became lost over that short distance and froze to death. The teacher survived, but her legs were frostbitten and had to be amputated. In Holt County, Nebraska, Etta Shattuck sought shelter in a haystack where she remained for three days. When she was eventually rescued, she was still alive, but later died from complications of the surgery to amputate her frostbitten limbs. In Mira Valley, Nebraska, teacher Minnie Freeman safely led her 13 students through the blizzard to her home 0.8 km (0.5 miles) away, possibly by tying them together with a clothesline so they would not get lost or separated. Many other children across the Great Plains were not so lucky, since about half the total casualties (235 people) were children who died in their schools or trying to get home from them.
The storms of that winter were not just restricted to the plains. The eastern part of the country suffered the most extreme snows in American history in March 1888, an event known as the Great Blizzard of 1888. Early March had already started with mild spring weather, so many Americans thought that winter was finally over. Shortly after midnight on March 12, 1888, the heavy rains of the evening turned to snow as the temperatures plummeted, and soon snow was falling all over the Mid-Atlantic states and New England (from Virginia to Maine) and in Maritime Canada at an incredible rate. By the next day, the snow was piled up at least a meter high nearly everywhere, with the maximum snowfall of 1.4 m (58 inches) dropped in a single storm. Winds reached up to 130 km/h (80 mph), blowing the snow into huge drifts and producing whiteout conditions all over the Northeast. The snowdrifts soon piled up to 15 m (50 feet), burying cars, trains, and buildings under thick snow.
Fig. 8.3. Images of the snowdrifts after the Great Blizzard of 1888. A, New York & Harlem Railroad train trapped in snowdrifts near Coleman Station, March 13, 1888. B, The tracks and trains at 45th Street and Grand Central Station were paralyzed. (Images courtesy NOAA Photo Library)
When the Great White Hurricane finally ended on March 14, 1888, the entire Northeast coast was paralyzed (fig. 8.3). All telegraph and telephone lines were down, isolating cities and preventing the communication of important emergency information. In future years, cities began to put their wires underground to prevent this problem from recurring. All the railroads and streetcars were also gridlocked, and the roads were clogged with snow, preventing anyone from traveling for days. The snowdrifts across the trains up from New York to Connecticut took eight days to clear, which led to the development of the Boston and New York City subway systems. Fire stations were also locked in snow, so there was no response to fires, and more than $25 million in damage was caused by fire. As the weather rapidly warmed in late March, the snow melted and flooded many regions, including Brooklyn. There was so much snow on the ground that attempts were made to load it up and dump it in the ocean. At least 400 people died from the snow and its side effects, such as exposure and frostbite, including 200 just in New York City.
The severe winters of the 1880s were never quite duplicated in subsequent American history, because the overall trend in climate since then has been dominated by global warming. These storms were the final gasp of the Little Ice Age before it came to an end. But their effects were profound. Not only did these blizzards kill many people and cattle, but they also changed the way of life in the American West and ended the practice of large-scale open-range cattle ranching. They slowed the flood of settlers and homesteaders in the northern plains, since the myth of the “mild weather” of the region was shown to be a promoter’s lie. The westward migration did not halt, of course, but it shifted to other areas, especially Oklahoma, which had been reserved for Native Americans but had been opened in the 1880s and 1890s to settlers who didn’t want to experience the harsh winters of the northern plains.
Blizzards are more than heavy snowstorms. They form when a high-pressure ridge of cold air from higher latitudes sweeps down and meets a low-pressure cell of moist air, usually from the subtropics. If the air is warm enough, these conditions produce thunderstorms and tornadoes, as discussed in chapter 7. During the winter, air is much colder, and precipitation comes down as snow, ice, or hail. A blizzard must have winds of at least 60 km/h (37 mph), temperatures well below freezing (–7°C or 20°F or lower), and lots of falling or blowing snow. Typically, falling snow creates near whiteout conditions, cars are stranded, and people are subject to frostbite or hypothermia and death. Blizzards can cause unusually high death tolls, especially if the blizzard arrives suddenly and traps inadequately clothed people in exposed areas where they cannot stay warm.
In some parts of the world, extreme temperature change is not uncommon. I have been in the northern High Plains on a hot humid spring or fall day in which the outside temperatures were in the high 30 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), mainly due to warm moist air from the Gulf. Then an Arctic air mass moves quickly over the plains, and the temperature drops below freezing in a matter of hours. If you are caught out in the field a long way from vehicles or shelter, wearing only your light summer clothing, you risk freezing to death in a few short hours if you cannot find warmth and shelter. This extreme change in temperatures can only happen in the continental interiors because these regions have no moderating effects of large bodies of water to absorb or release heat to balance the temperature change. By contrast, regions near the ocean have relatively mild stable weather because of the high heat capacity and thermal stability of water.
Blizzards can be costly disasters. Blinding snowfall causes traffic accidents due to reduced visibility and slippery roads, and chain-reaction collisions can occur during heavy snowstorms. People trapped in their stranded cars are at the mercy of the elements unless they can be rescued. When I lived in the northern United States, I carried the essential equipment for winter survival in my car: windshield scraper, snow chains, and a survival kit with water, blankets, food, a small chemical heater, and first-aid supplies. During a severe blizzard, traffic may be stalled and airports may close. Businesses and schools shut down for a “snow day” because it’s difficult to conduct normal routines. These disruptions often cost millions of dollars in lost worker productivity and product delivery delays. In addition, the cost of snow removal can be considerable in areas of the country with heavy annual snowfall.
Even more striking is what happens when unusually cold snowy weather strikes the South or other regions where snow is rare. Traffic accidents increase because drivers have little or no experience with snow driving. Many municipalities lack snow removal equipment. Frostbitten northerners or midwesterners may watch the Weather Channel or CNN with amusement, viewing reports of Georgia or Alabama residents spinning and swerving in the snow, but these images are not funny because these regions and their residents face great danger due to their inexperience with snow.
Although the great blizzards of the 1880s were among the largest and deadliest in American history, major snowstorms happen every winter in northern North America. Each year brings a few more blizzards. However, some winter storms are more eventful than others, such as the White Hurricane of 1993, one of the biggest and deadliest snowstorms, also known as the ’93 Superstorm, or the Storm of the Century. It struck a large area from Central America to eastern Canada, but the East Coast of the United States was hit most severely. It was unique in historic storms for its intensity, size, and far-reaching effects. The Deep South received record amounts of snow, with 30 cm (12 inches) falling in Alabama and 41 cm (16 inches) falling elsewhere in the South. The northern parts of Florida were covered with 10 cm (4 inches) of snow for the first time in recorded history. Hurricane force winds that accompanied this freakish snowfall sometimes reached 160 km/h (100 mph) in places. Low-lying coastal regions in Louisiana and in Cuba were clobbered by storm surge waves that washed many people away. Scattered tornadoes were reported in many regions.
It all started with an unusually intense low-pressure system centered over Michigan and another over Florida, which pulled a mass of warm, moist air from the Gulf, with a line of thunderstorms along its leading edge. A huge, cold air mass flowed down from the Arctic to the eastern United States, where they both collided in one massive front (plate 12). Driving all this along was an unusually strong jet stream that deflected southeastward over the southern plains to create a strong cyclonic circulation pattern. By 1993, the National Weather Service was sophisticated, and five days in advance of the storm, the service began issuing warnings of extremely heavy snowfall in the plains. In the northeastern states, a state of emergency was declared before the snow began to fall, freeing up resources and manpower, and keeping people indoors. In southeastern United States, the early March temperatures were balmy, and local authorities did not believe the forecasts, so they ignored them and did not prepare, nor warn their citizens. The weather forecasters proved to be right after all.
Fig. 8.4. Snowfall map from the “Storm of the Century,” March 12–14, 1993. (Map courtesy NOAA; redrawn by Pat Linse)
By the evening of Friday, March 12, the temperatures had dropped rapidly over the entire eastern United States, and the intense rainfall from the frontal clouds quickly turned to snow. By Saturday morning, it was snowing heavily from Florida to the southeastern part of the United States. Through the next several days, the center of the low-pressure cell and the locus of heaviest snow shifted northward until it hit New York, New England, and Maritime Canada by Monday morning (fig. 8.4). Record low temperatures were recorded in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and even in the Northeast, the temperatures were unusually low for mid-March, as low as –10°C (14°F) in New England. The strong front spawned 50 tornadoes in Florida and Cuba, which killed more people than Hurricane Andrew in 1992, in which 45 people died. The storm surge wave that swept ashore in Florida and in the Caribbean surprised many and killed a few who were not expecting such large waves.
East Texas had snowy thunderstorms, and huge amounts of snow dropped up and down the eastern seaboard, with more than a meter (more than 3 feet) in many places, and snowdrifts as deep as 11 m (36 feet). The total volume of snowfall was calculated at 54 km3 (13 cubic miles), about 27 billion tons. Observers reported the lowest barometric pressures they had ever recorded, with values that typically accompanied the most intense hurricanes.
The severe weather caused at least 300 deaths, and more than 10 million people lost electricity for days. About 130 million people experienced this storm, or nearly half of America’s population at the time. The Deep South was shut down for days because state governments had no emergency plans to handle an extreme storm and no snow removal equipment (plate 13). Chattanooga, Tennessee, was covered with a record 1.2 m (4 feet) of snow, and Birmingham, Alabama, received a record-shattering 43 cm (17 inches). Nearly every city in the South was paralyzed and shut down. Most residents expected the start of spring, so these events had a deep psychological impact. NASCAR races were canceled or rescheduled for a few weeks following the snowstorm. Weather conditions throughout the South were unsuitable for racing and for large crowds to travel to the races. In the South, roofs not built for the weight of heavy, damp snow collapsed under the snowfall. Buildings lost walls to the heavy winds and cantilevered decks insufficiently attached to the wall (plate 13). Hundreds of people hiking the Appalachian Trail had to be rescued because they lacked snow equipment, and trail shelters were inadequate for 24 hours of below-freezing temperatures, high winds, and 1 m (39 inches) of snow on the trails and mountainsides.
Farther north, snowy Syracuse, New York (which gets many meters of winter snow due to the lake effect), got a record 1.1 m (43 inches) of snow. New York City, which had seldom experienced March winter snow, received 12 cm (1 foot) of the white stuff. Heavier amounts, ranging up to 60 cm (2 feet) of snow, hit the suburban areas of Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, all records for this late in March. The snow was just as heavy in Maritime Canada, as were the storm surges, which clobbered the fishing fleet and killed 48 sailors. The storm caused about $6.6 billion in damage, making it one of the most costly blizzards in American history. New Englanders may point to the blizzard of 1978 as more severe in their region, while the blizzard of 1996 was more severe in the mid-Atlantic states; however, for sheer size, volume, and destructiveness, the 1993 snowstorm was truly the Storm of the Century in North America.
Haraden, C. J. 2003. Storm of the Century. Times Square Books, New York.
Laskin, D. 2005. The Children’s Blizzard. Harper Perennial, New York.
Tougias, M. 2002. The Blizzard of ’78. On Cape Publications, Boston.
