1720 - Tornado kills sixty people
and injured more than 300 in San Justo, Argentina.
1800 - Eighteen inches of snow in Savannah, GA and ten inches
in Charleston, SC. Five inches of snow was measured as far south as St.
Mary’s River, FL. It was the heaviest snow ever recorded so far south.
1836 - “The Big Snow” dumped as much as forty inches of snow
over northern and western Pennsylvania and interior New York. As much as
twenty-four inches fell across southern New Jersey. Eighteen inches was
recorded at New York City and fifteen inches fell at Philadelphia, PA.
1911 - The temperature fell forty-seven degrees in fifteen
minutes at Rapid City, SD.
1949 - Snow was reported at San Diego, CA for the only time
since 1882. Snow fell on the beaches in parts of the Los Angeles area. .
Even Long Beach and Laguna Beach received an inch of snow. Burbank, CA
received 4.7 inches
1962 - A massive landslide of ice, rock and mud crashed down
the north side of Peru’s highest Mountain, Nevada de Huascaram. The
one-mile wide mass of debris, nearly fifty feet deep, moved eleven miles
in fifteen minutes and was as wide as one mile. Thirty five hundred
people were killed.
1975 - Minnesota’s “Storm of the Century” dumped two feet of
snow on parts of the Gopher State. . The barometer dropped to a record
28.55 inches at Duluth and wind chills reached -80F there. Thirty five
people perished because of the storm. Snow was not cleared in some areas
eleven days after the storm.
1975 - An F4 tornado struck McComb, MS just after 8 a.m.,
hitting two schools as 325 students took shelter. Only five were
injured. The twister destroyed eighty eight homes and thirty businesses
across the city. Nine people were killed along the forty-seven mile path
of the tornado.
1981 - The eastern half of the United States was in the deep
freeze as a major arctic blast affected the country. Records were set
all across the Midwest. The coldest reading was -36F at Sault Ste.
Marie, MI. Wind chills as low as -98F were reported at Fargo, ND.
1982 - January 10-11 were the most uncomfortable days ever
recorded east of the Rockies according to NOAA as one of coldest air
masses in the twentieth century was affecting the United States.
Forty-one cities established new records lows for the date, many setting
all time records. Chicago O’Hare fell to -26F with 20 mph winds that
made the wind chill factor drop to -77F! The cold weather was caused by
an intense Arctic high pressure system over Saskatchewan. The pressure
at the center was measured at 31.15 inches of mercury!
1982 - A “snow devil” developed at Edinboro, Pennsylvania.
The funnel shaped vortex, about one hundred feet tall and twenty to
twenty-five feet wide, ripped small trees out of the ground.
1982 - Miserable conditions at Riverfront Stadium in
Cincinnati where the Chargers played the Bengals in an NFL playoff game
with a kickoff temperature of -9 degrees.
1990 - Record highs were reported in fifty cities in the
central U.S. 70s were reported in Nebraska and Colorado. Records were
established for the month of January at the following stations: Devil’s
Lake ND (53F); Grand Island, NE (76); Lincoln NE (73); and North Platte,
NE (73)..
1993 - Salt Lake City recorded its greatest snowstorm in
history with 23.3 inches of snow in four days.
1996 - The third in a series of four major snowstorms in ten
days dumped heavy snows over the mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S. The
Washington/Baltimore area was just digging out from the blizzard two
days earlier when another three to six inches fell. Boston’s 5.4 inches
increased its snow cover to thirty-two inches, which set an all-time
record. The two inches that fell at Philadelphia brought the total for
the month to 33.7 inches, its snowiest January ever.
2002 - An international snowmobile race in Eagle River, WI
was nearly cancelled for…lack of snow! A snow less winter was forcing
winter festival organizers all over the upper Midwest to truck in their
snow. The world’s largest ice fishing contest in Brainerd, MN had to be
cancelled because the ice was not thick enough for vehicles to drive on
the frozen lakes