OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Perhaps no other decade has brought such an extreme variety of weather to Nebraska as the 1930s have done. From drought, dust, tornadoes, flooding, heat, cold, and everything in between.
While stories of the Dust Bowl include the massive walls of dust, families struggling to survive in extreme economic circumstances, or drought so severe it dried out whole states. While these all are all staples of the Dust Bowl years, this particular edition of This Week in WX History will focus on one particular month, where an entirely other disaster struck the heartland, brutal cold and massive piles of snow.
(This article focuses on February 1936, for background and context on the entire Dust Bowl years, read this blog post)
If you recall the This Week in WX History article on the 1899 cold wave, you might remember that February 1899 was the second coldest February in Nebraska history. What was the first? Well, it was February 1936. During the month, Omaha almost never had a low above zero for much of the month, and the snow that fell never melted. Below, let's look at the meteorology behind the event, the temperatures, and the impact.
THE METEOROLOGY
Broadly, our weather patterns in the United States are driven by the jet stream, a belt of fast-moving air in the upper levels of the atmosphere. Generally, the jet stream is the dividing line between two air masses. The air masses the jet stream separates over the United States is cold Canadian air to the north, and mild Gulf air to the south. Because these two air masses, which carry with them different densities and other properties, always want to seek equilibrium with one another the jet steam often fluctuates around. This fluctuation in the Jet stream comes in many forms, but normally it's when it breaks down into several waves which traverse across the United States. This wavy pattern in the jet stream is responsible for the weekly changes in weather the United States sees.
Normally, the jet stream moves across the United States like waves in a west-to-east fashion, which is why we have different weather week-to-week. However, there are times when the jet stream gets stuck. This is a phenomenon known as blocking, when there is a weather system that get's in the way of the jet stream moving. The most common time for blocking to occur is in the summer, when a large area of high pressure builds in the southeast US, oftentimes this is responsible for our big heat waves in the summer months.
Sometimes, blocking occurs in the winter months when a large area of high pressure builds in the northeast Pacific off the coast of Canada. This high pressure shoves the jet stream much further north into Alaska and western Canada. In response, the jet stream over the eastern US digs southward almost to the Gulf of Mexico. Then the pattern sits there, allowing for arctic air over Canada to spill into the eastern United States unabated. This is exactly what occurred in January-February 1936, a blocking high pressure developed in the Pacific and did not move for almost a month. It continued to flood the eastern US with cold, and the result is the coldest February on record for much of the northern plains.
THE COLD
In Nebraska and Iowa, January 1936 started off seasonal with nothing out of the ordinary. However, beginning on January 18 the blocking high began to develop, and the temperature started to drop. The -10 degrees achieved on the morning of January 18 would begin a trend that, with the exception of hitting 1 degree on the 21st, would last through February 19 where the low temperature would be at or below zero. The stretch between January 22 and February 19, 29 days, is the longest stretch of below zero weather in Omaha on record.
The cold got worse in February as the thermometer did not reach above 32 almost the entire month. In fact, between January 15 and February 22, Omaha would not reach above freezing in temperatures. This stretch of 40 days is the 2nd longest below freezing stretch in Omaha history, the number one being 46 days in early 1978. By the last week of February, a thaw began as temperatures slowly warmed back into the 30s and even 40s!
Not only was it the coldest February in Nebraska state history, but across much of the northern plains. In the Dakotas, many cities went weeks on end without seeing temperatures rise above zero. In both Dakotas, their all-time coldest temperature was hit during this stretch at -60 in North Dakota!
THE SNOW
Alongside the cold weather, the winter of 1936 was snowy for Nebraska and Iowa. Although there were not many blockbuster snowstorms, small snowstorms of a few inches were common across the region. Normally, this would not be an issue, but in 1936 when the temperature never rose above freezing, it added up quickly. Across Nebraska and Iowa, snow several feet deep accumulated across the region, leading to snow drifts as high as buildings in some places.
In Omaha, the snow depth, that is amount of snow on the ground at one time, reached around 30" or just under 3' of snow. In Fremont, the snow depth reached 44" or just under 4', the average height of a kindergartner. Fremont's snow depth not only was a record for the city, but it is the deepest measured snow depth in Nebraska state history!
The snow was disastrous, many roads across eastern NE and western IA were impassible for weeks. Railroads stopped services to particular areas. Schools were closed for days to weeks in 1936 to account for the extreme cold and heavy snow.
For those praying for cold relief in 1936, they certainly got it, but asked for too much as temperatures quickly rose to record highs by the summer of 1936. For more on that, wait until the July installment of This Week in WX History...
