The Blizzard of November 26-27, 1898

[donsutherland1]

As the Thanksgiving Day holiday approaches, people throughout the U.S. are in a hurried frenzy, catching flights, shopping for tomorrow’s feast, making last-minute invitations to friends and family. There are many things to be thankful for—last winter’s abundant snowfall, for example.

Now after a few appetizers of fleeting cold, we await this winter’s main course. Several prospective menus have been previewed—by Weather53, King of Weather, RNS/Erica, to name a few. All that remains to be seen is which one will ultimately be the one that is served.

As we take our seats at the table of the changing season, a look way back to the November 26-27, 1898 period offers some food for thought to sharpen one’s appetite for the coming winter.

During that time, our friends across the Pond in Britain and those living in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions were pummeled by wild winter storms that became November legends.

On November 27, 1898, as what would become a severe snowstorm advanced on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states, <I>The New York Times</I> reported of a blizzard in Great Britain. The blizzard there was made all the more rude as it followed closely on the heels of a stretch of benign, mild weather.

“The recent comparatively mild weather which has prevailed in Great Britain has been interrupted by a thorough blizzard in many parts of the country, especially in the north, where the snowdrifts have been several feet deep,” the newspaper revealed.

The burgeoning winter’s fury was not confined to the British Isles. “The severe weather reached as far south as the Mediterranean…,” the article stated.

A few days earlier, the stage was being set for a dramatic early display of winter’s ferocity in the Northeastern U.S. Just as had been the case in Britain, the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S. had been embraced by the warmth of Indian Summer.

A strong cold front crossed the region on November 24th, bringing a period of rain that ended with snow. The snowfall wasn’t a big deal, but it was enough to be noticed. Following the cold front, the next day dawned bright but crisp.

“It is doubtful whether healthier and more bracing weather for the late Fall has been experienced here this year than that of yesterday,” the November 26, 1898 edition of <I>The New York Times</I> exclaimed, “The north and northwesterly wind that had changed the rain into snow on Thursday had also blown away the clouds and the day opened with a clear sky and a light, frosty, and dry atmosphere that raised the spirits and prompted one to outdoor exercise. This snow measured barely an inch and a half in depth, and that was easily shoveled and swept away from the sidewalks.”

The bright day was but a brief interlude for a more serious assault from what ultimately would prove to be one of the great winters in North American history. The outdoor would have proved useful in preparing one for the shoveling that lay just ahead, as the next storm would not be one’s whose snowfall “was easily shoveled and swept away.”

As <I>The New York Times</I> was singing praise to the ‘healthy’ and ‘bracing’ weather of a day earlier, an energetic disturbance had swept southeastward from Canada, across Lake Superior and toward the Delmarva Peninsula. Later, as it reached the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, it bombed out and slowed in forward motion.

By 11 am, a blizzard was raging in Philadelphia. “The blizzard reached this city at 11 o’clock and raged furiously until 1 o’clock this morning [November 27]. As unexpected as it was violent, it wrought great havoc not only here but throughout the entire state,” the November 28, 1898 issue of <I>The New York Times</I> reported of the situation in Philadelphia.

As the disturbance progressed clouds thickened during the early morning in New York City. By 11 am, the air in New York City was filled with large, wet flakes. As the afternoon progressed the snowflakes became finer and the air steadily colder. The landscape was transformed into a Courier & Ives scene by the falling snow. “It turned young men white and made Santa Clauses of all, old and young,” the November 27, 1898 edition of <I>The New York Times</i> recounted.

By night, “A large number of sleighs were on the Boulevard at Coney Island” and the “storm completely stopped traffic by trolley cars in the Borough of Richmond… Hundreds of Staten Islanders returning from Manhattan were compelled either to walk to their homes or take the Staten Island Rapid Transit Railroad, and then, in some instances having to walk a mile or two from the stations.”

This was no gently falling snow. The wind was steadily increasing. By 10:30 at night as the howling storm sat off the New Jersey coast, the wind was blowing out of the northeast at 42 mph, blowing the snow “cuttingly” into the faces of those outdoors as the “temperature seemed as though it might be buried in the mercury bulb.”

Snow was falling from Michigan to Washington, D.C. northward to Boston. Washington, D.C. had largely avoided the storm’s heaviest snows receiving an inch. Philadelphia had received 5”. New York City was reporting in with around 8”.

By 9 pm the snow had arrived in Boston. There would be no busted forecast. “A dull gray sky, which hung over the city…foreboded a storm, and the Weather Bureau, carefully watching the disturbance moving over the lakes in the early morning, came to the conclusion that it would assume dangerous proportions before night, especially in this part of the country, and therefore ordered up storm signals along the New England coast from Newport to Eastport,” the November 27, 1898 issue of <I>The New York Times</I> reported.

“Beginning in this city at 9 o’clock, the storm rapidly assumed more than ordinary proportions, and with a heavy snowfall and a stiff northeasterly breeze by 10 o’clock was rapidly approaching the nature of a blizzard. Near the coast the temperature was just above freezing, so that the snow was damp and sticky, but in the interior the flakes were finer, and the snow drifted badly,” the report continued, “The heavy snowfall after 11 o’clock was apparently in the vicinity of this city and to the south and west, as Maine points at that hour reported little or no snow.”

The storm ended in Philadelphia around 1 a.m. on November 27. During the 14-hours of heavy snow, “the snowfall reached a depth of over nine inches and the wind a velocity of forty-five miles an hour. These figures are unprecedented in the November records of the local weather bureau, and the officials say that the storm in general was the worst since 1888… The gale was especially severe around the Delaware Capes…”

“The severest wind and snow storm in ten years has been raging along this coast the past two days. Telephone communication between the life-saving stations has been broken off, making it impossible for the Maritime Exchange in this city to ascertain whether there have been any marine disasters or not,” came the report from Atlantic City.

As for New York City, the snow ended on the morning of November 27. The November 28, 1898 issue of <I>The New York Times</I> reported, “The merry jingle of sleigh bells was heard all day long…along the avenues in the city where the street railroads do not run; on the road in Central Park, throughout the full length of Riverside Drive, and the upper Seventh Avenue up to the bridge, but on no thoroughfare or road in the city was there such a jingling of the tiny bells as on the Speedway.”

New England was especially hard-hit. “The storm in this city is the heaviest known since the blizzard of 1888. The snow is about two feet on a level and is badly drifted,” came the report from Hartford. By the time the storm finished, Boston had received a foot of snow and New London, CT was buried under 27”.

“Havoc in New England” was the grim report from Boston. “[T]he great blizzard of Nov. 27, 1898 is likely to go down in history as one of the most appalling catastrophes that up to this time have overtaken the coastwise shipping of the United States,” reported <I>The New York Times</I> on November 28, 1898, “There is scarcely a bay, harbor, or inlet from the Penobscot to New London that has not on its shores the bones of some craft, while along Massachusetts Bay and especially Boston Harbor, the beaches are piled high with wreckage of schooner and coal barges.”

A day after the great November blizzard, milder air had returned to the region and criticism of the street-cleaning effort abounded in New York City. The November 29, 1898 issue of <I>The New York Times</I> reported, “It has been many years since the streets of New York, thirty-six hours after a snowstorm, were in the conditions which marked them yesterday. Although the Street Cleaning Department claimed to have had many men and carts at work yesterday and the night before, they had made hardly any impression on the streets, which in the most-traveled sections were impassable during the rush hours of the day.”

The news from the nearby suburbs in New Jersey, Westchester County, and Long Island was even worse. “In the country districts near this city, where the wind gets plenty of chance to pile up big drifts, the residents are still floundering about in what the storm left. In eastern Long Island villages many were getting back to their homes yesterday who left them on Saturday morning [November 26] so confident of returning that they never gave it definite thought.”

For now, as the story of Winter 2003-04 is in its opening pages, no such November monster lurks. But for those who love snowstorms, the past winter left much to be thankful for.

To all, have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

[Anonymous]

Don...great read.

I too pass on Thanksgiving wishes to all...enjoy your family.

Here's hoping we too will be able to shovel many a snowstorm this season.

[donsutherland1]

Thanks for the kind wishes. I am certainly looking forward to the coming winter.

[Colin]

Unfortunatley, it's looking like a stinky winter. Now they are saying it'll even be warm this December... Don, any hope?

Happy Thanksgiving!

[aep]

I enjoyed reading that, Don...thanks for sharing.
It sure must have been intersting to live back then when storms of that magnitude came as a surprise.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[donsutherland1]

Thanks for the Thanksgiving wishes. I hope that you and your family had a great Thanksgiving last month (very belated wishes).

[NEwxgirl]

Great job don as always, on your review of the November 1898 storm. And best wishes to you as well this thanksgiving (from both RNS and I).

[donsutherland1]

Colin,

I don't think one should write off the winter even as the evolution of things is quite slow at the moment.

Through the first half of December, I expect only a gradual change in the pattern, with troughiness persisting in the western U.S. for the most part. Through at least December 10 and possibly December 15, I am not optimistic about a PNA+ pattern setting up.

The current ensembles also seem to bear this out:

<img src="http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/pna.sprd2.gif">

I do believe that the NAO could swing negative toward the middle or latter part of the first week in December, and maybe somewhat sooner, especially as much above normal height anomalies currently located northeast of New Foundland progress toward Greenland. Also, after December 10, the pattern could be growing somewhat more amplified and this could begin to lay the groundwork for a turn to colder weather.

Currently, some of the analogs seem to be more favorable for a quicker arrival of the cold than the actual pattern evolution seems to suggest.

For your area, I anticipate temperature anomalies as follows:

December 1-7: Below normal to near normal
December 8-14: Near normal to above normal
December 15-21 Below normal to near normal

Bear in mind, I do expect a continuation of fairly large fluctuations in the tempertures with brief periods of above normal to even much above normal readings interrupted by brief periods of below normal readings.

Best estimate for extremes during the December 1-21 period:
Highest: 56
Lowest: 16

[donsutherland1]

Thanks, and both of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday, as well.

[NEwxgirl]

Don, you are most likely right about the PNA, however at the same time the ensembels are indicating that the NAO will head toward strongly negative over the first 10 days of the month>>>>

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _ensm.html

and as long as we have presistent cutoffs forming off the west coast, the verification of the PNA will not matter as much since the height rises above the cutoff low center would direct the polar branch of the jet southeastward instead of letting it dig into the west, and that given the NAO would keep at least a weak trough in the eastern US.

[donsutherland1]

Erica,

You're right about the ensembles and I believe the NAO will at least turn negative around December 3-4 +/- a day or so.

The weak trough in the east idea is certainly a distinct and maybe even increasing possibility and I might have to reconsider some of my ideas concerning temperatures if things progress in that direction.

[Stormsfury]

It a definite hint of some kind of pattern change, albeit very slowly.

SF

[LehighValleyForcaster]

The warm water running north in the Atlantic will continue to bring mild temps to the Northeast.

Unless the temp of the water changes and become cooler............then it will be unlikely that the colder temps will push into the region.

This is the reason why the Northeast is experiencing mild temps.

You also must take into consideriation that our Earth is tilting on its axis and that also is playing a big part in the milder temps in this region.

This is why it is making it difficult for forecasters to predict what type of winter we will have this year.

[donsutherland1]

SF,

Actually if one looks at some the later computer guidance, it looks like my ideas might be somewhat too slow (see Erica's point on this). I'm not yet ready to commit to a faster pattern change just yet--I'll wait for run-to-run continuity of the models before I do so--but at least some of the ingredients appear to be there for just such a change.

[donsutherland1]

LehighValleyForcaster,

I have to disagree with respect to a number of points. With regard to the SSTAs, recent trends have seen conditions growing more favorable for a negative NAO. In fact, the idea of a negative NAO commencing in early December and possibly becoming strongly negative is looking increasingly good (SSTAs, evolution of heights, etc.). If anything, my idea that a normal to cooler than normal first week in December (which still looks good) would be followed by a normal to somewhat milder than normal second week (looking less likely per some of the later computer guidance) appears to be in growing need of being reconsidered.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the point you are trying to make, but with regard to the tilt of the earth, I am not aware of any dramatic changes that makes it even remotely a factor. The exeptionally strong solar flares likely contributed somewhat to the strengthening of the Icelandic Low (less tendency for a negative NAO) but aside from SSTAs and the patterns, I don't believe the earth's tilt has made the current season any more hostile (to winter weather lovers) than let's say last season or any less predictable.

In the overall scheme of things, the winter continues to appear to be on track even when considering some uncertainty as to when the pattern switch will be completed. This winter, unlike last, should see far more variability in temperatures, with extremes (both on the low side and high side being more pronounced than last winter).

Finally, in the real long range, if one examines a few of the analogs and couples them with some of the past years in which the pattern has evolved as it has through November, there is a hint that maybe January might see a bout of truly severe cold. But that's getting far too far ahead of myself so I'll leave that in the realm of speculation for now, as much could still change.

All said, the evolution toward a colder pattern is underway and proceeding albeit slowly (but perhaps faster than I had envisioned last night).