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The sometime unpredictability of the weather can always be
a daunting prospect. Freak weather rarely goes unnoticed by
the weather forecasters, who are constantly striving to warn
towns and cities of approaching bad weather. So, what happens
when the forecast is wrong, the bad weather systems go unnoticed,
and towns are unprepared for what is about to hit them?
This question was answered
by New York when they experienced an extremely violent snowstorm
- 'The Great White Hurricane' in 1888. This horrific storm
came as a complete shock to the citizens of New York and the
other towns that were badly beaten by the extreme weather
conditions.
On Saturday the 10th
of March 1888, the day before the storm, the temperature in
New York was in the fifties, which was unseasonably mild.
Elias B. Dunn read the forecast for the following day as "cloudy,
followed by light rain and clearing." However, the forecaster
could not have been further from the truth!
When the 11th of March
arrived there was no "cloudy" sky nor "light rain", and certainly
no "clearing" in sight. Torrential rain, fierce winds and
plummeting temperatures were what the city received. Shortly
after the start of the storm, the drenching rain turned into
heavy snowfall and the storm continued like that for the next
36 hours.
The storm was created
by a huge mass of arctic air that had blown into the area
from the northwest, which clashed with the warm, moist area
from the south that New York was enjoying - generating violent
storms all along the east coast. These storms brought all
the towns from Chesapeake Bay to Maine to a complete standstill.
By the 12th of March,
10 inches of snow had fallen and there was yet more to come.
The hurricane winds were producing bad snowdrifts, which were
also moving around a mass of broken glass and other debris
consumed on their path.
The storm had also
severed communication links between New York and the outside
world, by snapping the telephone and telegraph lines in its
rampage of the city. Transportation was also brought to a
standstill as the trains stalled under the freezing temperatures,
leaving 15,000 people stranded and totally helpless to the
elements. Most
of the other means of transport had been blown over by strong
winds and littered the streets.
When people ventured
into the streets, they were just simply blown over, and being
unable to get up because of the winds, they either drowned
in the snow or were buried alive by the passing snowdrifts.
The aftermath of the
storm was 22 inches of deadly snow that buried houses, caused
a great deal of infrastructure damage, and claimed 400 lives.
The damage was so extensive that it helped to convince New
York and many other cities to replace their elevated train
system to an underground network, and to place all important
cables and utility lines under the ground.
The full measure of
the storm was unfortunately never documented due to much of
the meteorological equipment being damaged or frozen by the
storm. However, it has been estimated to be one of the most
violent and expensive storms in history. There really is no
question as to why it was nicknamed 'The Great White Hurricane'!
Other features in
the Great Storms series
Hurricane 1775
Frosts 1776
Galveston 1900
Bangladesh 1970
Tornadoes 1974
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