October 19-21, 1916 Midwest Storm

[Hoosier]

I never knew about this event and there is not much on the internet about it but it is pretty interesting. A borderline major hurricane with 110 mph winds made landfall near the AL/FL border on October 18, 1916 and moved rapidly NNW to southern IL on the morning of the 19th. The low had weakened drastically and was extratropical by that point but restrengthened into a fairly deep low, brought widespread rain/high winds and, for some parts of the Midwest, record early season snow.

Here is a sfc/500 mb animation from 00z October 18 to 00z October 22 (apologies for the small size). It appears that the hurricane was steered into the AL/FL region by a trough in the southern Plains and then moved into the Ohio Valley area. Then, a new trough moved southward into the northern Plains and this interaction is probably what caused the remnant system to restrengthen.

Some of the lowest pressures recorded on the 20th include 29.16" at Ludington, MI...29.18" at Milwaukee and 29.24" at Chicago.

Also of interest, a 5.1 earthquake occurred in Alabama on the day of landfall, which is the strongest earthquake on record for that state. The quake was felt as far north as the Ohio Valley.

[Minnesota Meso]

Interesting that you are using the term event instead of storm. Storms are storms, when a storm causes major damage or major disruption's to our economic infrastructure ie shipping lanes or highway's being blocked for 24-48 hrs I call that a event.

[Hoosier]

Interesting that you are using the term event instead of storm. Storms are storms, when a storm causes major damage or major disruption's to our economic infrastructure ie shipping lanes or highway's being blocked for 24-48 hrs I call that a event.

Well, I thought about going with "a great atmospheric disturbance with societal impact" but figured that event would be a little simpler.

Anyhow, it appears there was a pretty good early season snowstorm just prior to this (17-18th) in the northern Plains/upper Midwest.

[Hoosier]

Well, just realized that this is the Black Friday storm that resulted in many deaths on Lake Erie.

http://ww2.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/content/1916_gales.htm

http://lakeeriewinds.blogspot.com/2011/11/real-black-friday.html

[nwohweather]

Yup this was one hell of a storm. That's quite a feat to be the worst storm in this lake's history as there have been so many. I can personally tell you being in a thunderstorm on that lake is quite intimidating, just gets so stirred up so quickly

[Roger Smith]

Here's some Toronto data ... 2.33" of rain fell Oct 19-20, peak temperature was 58 F on the 20th, highs of 48 F both of 21st and 22nd. A station in London ON at that time reported only 1.05" of rain on the 20th (no temps). At Windsor across from Detroit, similar temps and 1.4" rain 19th to 21st, temp pattern looks like cold air wrapped around from SW late 21st with a minimum of 35 F that probably happened in the evening then temps in upper 30s lower 40s all day 22nd. At Woodstock ON which is about one-third of the way from London to Toronto, about 1.5" of rain same time period as Toronto, similar temps. None of these stations have published wind data unfortunately.

[Hoosier]

1.65" at Lafayette with a high of only 37 on the 21st. Looks like there was a band of 3-9" snows as close by as central IL.

[andyhb]

Interesting that you are using the term event instead of storm. Storms are storms, when a storm causes major damage or major disruption's to our economic infrastructure ie shipping lanes or highway's being blocked for 24-48 hrs I call that a event.

 

Excuse me for going back to this, but what does this criteria have to do with calling something an event or not?

 

A simple thunderstorm can be called a storm or an event as much as Hurricane Katrina can be called a storm or an event, obviously of different magnitude, but the second part didn't make much sense, at least to me.