The
Armistice Day Blizzard (or the
Armistice Day Storm) took place in the Midwest region of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on 11 November (
Armistice DayArmistice Day is on 11 November and commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day...
) and 12 November 1940. The intense early-season
"Panhandle hookA Panhandle hook is a relatively infrequent storm system whose cyclogenesis occurs in the South to southwestern United States from the late fall through winter and into the early spring months...
" winter stormA winter storm is an event in which the dominant varieties of precipitation are formed that only occur at low temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground temperatures are low enough to allow ice to form...
cut a 1,000-mile-wide (1600 km) path through the middle of the country from
KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
to
MichiganMichigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
.
The storm
The morning of 11 November 1940 brought with it unseasonably high temperatures. By early afternoon temperatures had warmed in lower to middle 60s
oF (18
oC) over most of the affected region. However, as the day wore on conditions quickly deteriorated. Temperatures dropped sharply,
windWind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
s picked up, and
rainRain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
, followed by
sleetRain and snow mixed is precipitation composed of rain and partially melted snow. This precipitation can occur where the temperature in the lower part of the atmosphere is slightly above the freezing point...
, and then
snowSnow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
began to fall. An intense
low pressureA low-pressure area, or "low", is a region where the atmospheric pressure at sea level is below that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure systems form under areas of wind divergence which occur in upper levels of the troposphere. The formation process of a low-pressure area is known as...
system had tracked from the
southern plainsThe South Central United States or South Central states is a region of the United States located in the south central part of the country. It evolved out of the archaic southwest, which originally was literally the western U.S. South...
northeastward into western
WisconsinWisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, pulling
Gulf of MexicoThe Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
moisture up from the south and pulling down a cold
arcticThe Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
air massSurface weather analysis is a special type of weather map that provides a view of weather elements over a geographical area at a specified time based on information from ground-based weather stations...
from the north.
The result was a raging
blizzardA blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...
that would last into the next day. Snowfalls of up to 27 inches (69 cm), winds of 50 to 80 mph (80–130 km/h), 20-foot (6.1 m) snow drifts, and 50-degree Fahrenheit (30 °C) temperature drops were common over parts of the states of
NebraskaNebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
,
South DakotaSouth Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
,
IowaIowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
,
MinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
,
WisconsinWisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, and Michigan. In Minnesota, 27 inches (69 cm) of snow fell at Collegeville, and the
Twin Cities recorded 16 inches (41 cm). Record low pressures were recorded in
La Crosse, WisconsinLa Crosse is a city in and the county seat of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, United States. The city lies alongside the Mississippi River.The 2011 Census Bureau estimates the city had a population of 52,485...
and
Duluth, MinnesotaDuluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
. Transportation and communications were crippled, which exacerbated finding the dead and injured. The Armistice Day Blizzard ranks #2 in Minnesota's list of top-5 weather events of the 20th century.
Casualties
A total of 145 deaths were blamed on the storm, with the following instances being noteworthy:
- Along the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
several hundred duck huntersWaterfowl hunting is the practice of hunting ducks, geese, or other waterfowl for food and sport...
had taken time off from work and school to take advantage of the ideal hunting conditions. Weather forecasters had not predicted the severity of the oncoming storm, and as a result many of the hunters were not dressed for cold weather. When the storm began many hunters took shelter on small islands in the Mississippi River, and the 50 mph (80 km/h) winds and 5-foot (1.5 m) waves overcame their encampments. Some became stranded on the islands and then froze to death in the single-digit temperatures that moved in over night. Others tried to make it to shore and drowned. Duck hunters constituted about half of the 49 deaths in Minnesota. Those who survived told of how ducks came south with the storm by the thousands, and everybody could have shot their daily limit had they not been focused on survival. Casualties were lessened by the efforts of Max ConradMaximilien "Max" Conrad, known as the "Flying Grandfather", was a record-setting aviator. In the 1950s and 1960s, he set nine official light plane world records, three of which still stand at the end of 2008. For his efforts, he was awarded the Louis Blériot medal in 1952 and the prestigious...
, a pioneering light plane pilot and one of his students (John R. Bean) both based in Winona, Minnesota, 25 miles upriver from La Crosse. They flew up and down the river in the wake of the storm, locating survivors and dropping supplies to them. Both men were nominated for the Carnegie Medal for their heroism.
- In Watkins, Minnesota
Watkins is a city in Meeker County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 962 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....
, 2 people died when two trains collided in the blinding snow.
- In Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
, 66 sailors died on three freighters, the SS Anna C. MinchThe SS Anna C. Minch was a cargo carrier which foundered, broke in two, and sank in Lake Michigan during the Armistice Day Blizzard on 11 November 1940. The Anna C. Minch was a steam powered, steel hulled bulk freighter constructed in 1903 by the American Ship Building Company at Cleveland,...
, the SS Novadoc, and the SS William B. DavockThe SS William B. Davock was a lake freighter that was part of the fleet of the Interlake Steamship Company. She was built in 1907 and sank with all hands in Lake Michigan during the Armistice Day Storm on November 11, 1940. She was carrying a cargo of coal from Erie, Pennsylvania to South Chicago...
, as well as two smaller boats that sank.
- 13 people died in Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, 13 in Wisconsin, and 4 in Michigan.
Additionally, 1.5 million head of turkeys intended for Thanksgiving dinner across Minnesota perished from exposure.
Aftermath
Prior to this event, all of the weather forecasts for the region originated in Chicago. After the failure to provide an accurate forecast for this blizzard, forecasting responsibilities were expanded to include 24-hour coverage and more forecasting offices were created, yielding more accurate local forecasts.
External links