February 1899 Blizzard in Chester County PA

[ChescoWx]

While we may not have any blizzards on the near-term horizon here in Chester County PA...of interest today back in 1899 marked the end of the largest snowstorm in recorded Chester County history back to 1894. The US Department of Agriculture cooperative weather observer for Coatesville PA was Mr. W.T. Gordon (see his attached hand written observation record below). I gave a talk on this storm a few years back for the East Nantmeal Township Historical Society and it certainly got a reaction! Even more than I think LV Weather Historian gave us back a couple months ago - LOL!!

Mr Gordon noted that snow began falling at 7:30pm on February 11th. That day had been a very cold day with the high temperature only reaching 11 degrees above zero...following an AM low of 13 degrees below zero. The following day the 12th featured snow of varying intensity continuing all day. It was a bitterly cold day with the high temperature only reaching 8 degrees above zero after the morning low of just 2 degrees above. Snow accumulated an additional 7.1" during the day of the 12th . The storm then really kicked into high gear on the 13th as the ocean low deepened explosively along the arctic front and moved up the coast - snow and wind increased during the day with winds now out of the northeast across Chester County. By 9pm on the evening of the 13th an astounding 35.3" of snow had fallen during the preceding 24 hours ending at that hour. The snow continued to fall heavily after his last observation at 9pm on the 13th. By the morning of the 14th - the snow had ended but he measured an additional 10" of snow. Bringing the storm total to an incredible 53.0". On the morning of February 15th Mr. Gordon recorded the greatest snow depth in Chester County history when he measured 69.8" of snow on the ground....that's right 5 feet 8 inches of snow were on the ground following the greatest Blizzard in Chester County History on this day back in 1899.

[Hurricane Agnes]

I was scanning Accuweather this morning and saw this story that they had about that storm and extreme cold outbreak - https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/the-snow-king-blizzard-great-arctic-outbreak-of-1899/1140132

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Weather Bureau Weather Map for Feb. 13, 1899, shows a large low-pressure system bringing snow from South Carolina to Maine, with temperatures in the Florida Panhandle dipping into the teens and the freezing line (32 F) two-thirds of the way through Florida.

NOAA

An animation from the 20th Century Reanalysis (V3) project shows estimated mean sea-level pressure in the U.S. between Feb. 12 and Feb. 14, 1899. The strong low-pressure system off the east coast, shown as purple, is the "Snow King" storm.

NOAA

 

There was a copy (PDF) of the Weather Bureau monthly summary for February 1899 linked as well, which is here - https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Monthly-Weather-Review-February-1899.pdf

 

(the Coatesville COOP report is on pg. 75 of the scanned Bureau monthly summary report in the PDF)

[LVwxHistorian]

1 minute ago, LVwxHistorian said:

I'm back, so please don't get me started again on this ridiculousness!

  And just to be accurate:   he "measured" a snowfall of 69.8" -- that wasn't the depth on the ground.  

And I'm curious: did you ever bother to go to your local library and substantiate any of this?

For those of you that don't know: the nearest stations to Coatesville measured 30 inches less than this!!   See "Old Crappy Coatesville snowfall records" discussion

 

[ChescoWx]

1 hour ago, LVwxHistorian said:

 

Incorrect LV....on the 15th he measured 69.8" on the ground

[LVwxHistorian]

45 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

Incorrect LV....on the 15th he measured 69.8" on the ground

Oh gosh, you mean the thing on the right side?!    He probably just misread that in his drunken stupor!

And what, no "welcome back",  "we missed you", nothing?!!  

[RedSky]

How much did Philly receive I am curious. Not like they had any rain with this they should have been equally pummeled. 

 

 

[Hurricane Agnes]

58 minutes ago, RedSky said:

How much did Philly receive I am curious. Not like they had any rain with this they should have been equally pummeled. 

 

 

From Mt Holly's records (for the Feb. entries listed on that calendar) - https://www.weather.gov/phi/hist_phi

Quote

Feb 11

1899...
February 11-14 Middle and N Atlantic States. Great Ern blizzard. Near ACY and
PHL, snowfall 44"; DC 25 to 30"; NYC 24". Intense cold, -17 degrees at River Vale,
NJ and -15 degrees at DC, lowest ever recorded. Wind speeds 60 mph at Sandy Hook,
NJ, and 48 mph at ACY and Cape May, NJ. (LS 6107)

 

Feb 12..

1899...

Only 4 Feb daily snowfall records for PHL remain from the 1800s. They are: 8.0" on
the 3rd, 1886; 7.7" on the 12th, 1899; 10.0" on the 13th, 1899; and 6.4" on the 25th,
1885. (PHL)

 

Feb 13

...1899...
Only 4 Feb daily snowfall records for PHL remain from the 1800s. They are: 8.0" on
the 3rd, 1886; 7.7" on the 12th, 1899; 10.0" on the 13th, 1899; and 6.4" on the 25th,
1885.

 

Feb 14

...1899...
A great blizzard struck the Ern US. DC received 20.5" of snow to bring their total
snow depth to nearly 3'. The storm produced 36" of snow at Cape May NJ. (L)

So from the Feb. 11 entry (which gave a summary and total for the 4-day event), they are indicating 44" for Philly, which if the Feb. 12/13 dates are showing each day's measurement, would mean Feb. 11 had the bulk of the snow and would have been 26.3".

But from the PDF "Monthly" report from the Weather Bureau (linked in my earlier post) for February 1899, they list PHL having 31.2" for the month (unless that is just indicating what was still "left on the ground" at the end of the month, which would make sense if there were no warmups/rain after that storm).

[LVwxHistorian]

52 minutes ago, RedSky said:

How much did Philly receive I am curious. Not like they had any rain with this they should have been equally pummeled. 

 

 

NCDC: IPS Your publication | IPS | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) (noaa.gov)

IPS-7EED8214-582F-4EFF-99F6-C48A66B83184.pdf

 

I can't believe nobody missed me!!!!!

[Hurricane Agnes]

On 2/15/2022 at 10:51 AM, LVwxHistorian said:

  And just to be accurate:   he "measured" a snowfall of 69.8" -- that wasn't the depth on the ground.  

And I'm curious: did you ever bother to go to your local library and substantiate any of this?

For those of you that don't know: the nearest stations to Coatesville measured 30 inches less than this!!   See "Old Crappy Coatesville snowfall records" discussion

The report image that was posted with that total of 69.8", appears to be the total snowfall for the whole month of February 1899.  Based on that report, it was a recording of daily readings with snow having fallen on Feb. 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th and then nothing until the blizzard event, where there is a report for Feb. 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th.  And then there was no more snow for the rest of February.

So that 69.8" measurement was the total of a bunch of days of snow between Feb. 1st - Feb. 15th, where out of those first 15 days of February, 9 of them produced some kind of snow.  There was 1 day in that period where it appears there was some rain (or a mix) and the other 5 days during those first 2 weeks, there was no measurable precipitation.

The column for "depth on ground at time of observation" does not appear to be filled out so he apparently measured whatever snow fell each day and then cleared the board for daily individual readings that got totaled at the bottom of the column.  I know there is an option to do whatever the depth is (without clearing) to establish what the snow coverage is as it changes from day to day, but he apparently didn't do that and just totaled the individual snowfall readings. With no further snow for the month after the 15th, and that figure got transferred to the far right "Monthly Summary" section for both the pre-printed "15th" (mid-month) total "on the ground" and final monthly "total".   

There is some "5.24" lightly-written annotation diagonally across the Feb. 12 - 13 entries in that depth column, but I don't know what that means or if it is something that was done by the archivist later in the history of the document because it doesn't appear to match the observer's handwriting.

What is fascinating about that report though is that it almost mirrors some of the types of things that happened in 1996 (although 1996 didn't have the brutal cold of 1899).... I.e., there were several little snowfalls around the big one and a warm up in there too - in fact for the 1899 reported record on Feb. 19,20, 21, 22, & 23 the highs were 50, 58, 58, 59, and 50!  It looks like it also started out cold on Feb. 16, then the warm air came in and there was 1.20" mix (sleet/rain - and he did list the 16th as being a day with sleet) and then the next couple days registering more light rain.  Then more warmth and more sleet/mix (the 26th) and rain (27th).

 

[LVwxHistorian]

This observer was having a MAJOR problem correctly measuring snowfall.  here's some of his other obs compared to the 2 closest stations, West chester and kennet square:

April 10-12, 1894:   29.2"   KS - 8.8" and WC - 7.8"

Feb.  1899:   69.8"    KS -- 46", WC - 38" 

 Jan 25, 1905:  29"    KS - 18", WC - 14.3"

Dec 25-26, 1909:  38"   KS -- 23" and at WC -- 21"

[RedSky]

2 hours ago, LVwxHistorian said:

NCDC: IPS Your publication | IPS | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) (noaa.gov)

IPS-7EED8214-582F-4EFF-99F6-C48A66B83184.pdf 724.67 kB · 3 downloads

 

I can't believe nobody missed me!!!!!

Philly 31.2" for the month then yeah that Coatesville observer had a chest full of wacky tobbacy 

Looks to me like a couple 3's were added to the entry on the 13th and a decimal in the wrong place on the 14th lol

 

 

[KamuSnow]

1 hour ago, Hurricane Agnes said:

Th report image that was posted with that total of 69.8", appears to be the total snowfall for the whole month of February 1899.  Based on that report, it was a recording of daily readings with snow having fallen on Feb. 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th and then nothing until the blizzard event, where there is a report for Feb. 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th.  And then there was no more snow for the rest of February.

So that 69.8" measurement was the total of a bunch of days of snow between Feb. 1st - Feb. 15th, where out of those first 15 days of February, 9 of them produced some kind of snow.  There was 1 day in that period where it appears there was some rain (or a mix) and the other 5 days during those first 2 weeks, there was no measurable precipitation.

The column for "depth on ground at time of observation" does not appear to be filled out so he apparently measured whatever snow fell each day and then cleared the board for daily individual readings that got totaled at the bottom of the column.  I know there is an option to do whatever the depth is (without clearing) to establish what the snow coverage is as it changes from day to day, but he apparently didn't do that and just totaled the individual snowfall readings. With no further snow for the month after the 15th, and that figure got transferred to the far right "Monthly Summary" section for both the pre-printed "15th" (mid-month) total "on the ground" and final monthly "total".   

There is some "5.24" lightly-written annotation diagonally across the Feb. 12 - 13 entries in that depth column, but I don't know what that means or if it is something that was done by the archivist later in the history of the document because it doesn't appear to match the observer's handwriting.

What is fascinating about that report though is that it almost mirrors some of the types of things that happened in 1996 (although 1996 didn't have the brutal cold of 1899).... I.e., there were several little snowfalls around the big one and a warm up in there too - in fact for the 1899 reported record on Feb. 19,20, 21, 22, & 23 the highs were 50, 58, 58, 59, and 50!  It looks like it also started out cold on Feb. 16, then the warm air came in and there was 1.20" mix (sleet/rain - and he did list the 16th as being a day with sleet) and then the next couple days registering more light rain.  Then more warmth and more sleet/mix (the 26th) and rain (27th).

 

That 5.24 looks like the LE precip for the 12th, 13th and 14th. Looks like 10:1 ratio was assumed based on snow measurements, since it's pretty consistent.

[Hurricane Agnes]

1 hour ago, LVwxHistorian said:

This observer was having a MAJOR problem correctly measuring snowfall.  here's some of his other obs compared to the 2 closest stations, West chester and kennet square:

April 10-12, 1894:   29.2"   KS - 8.8" and WC - 7.8"

Feb.  1899:   69.8"    KS -- 46", WC - 38" 

 Jan 25, 1905:  29"    KS - 18", WC - 14.3"

Dec 25-26, 1909:  38"   KS -- 23" and at WC -- 21"

The distance between Coatesville and Kennett Square is 14 miles and between Coatesville and West Chester is 18 miles.  Coatesville is also further away (west - ~44 miles) from the city of Philadelphia than either Kennett Square (~39 miles, where Kennett Square is also only 12 miles from Wilmington, DE) or West Chester (~36 miles). Coatesville is also NW of both Kennett Square and West Chester. So not sure what the relevance is? 

I am about 20 miles from KPHL and am about 13 miles from my old work site downtown Philly (before I retired) that is located near the Delaware River, and it can literally be like day and night (like the last storm).  So none of these locations are "close enough" to each other to be that comparative other than West Chester and Kennett Square being closer to each other (about 12 miles apart). And even with those two, the data that you selected is distinctly showing the significant differences between the Kennett Square and West Chester measurements for the 1899 and 1905 storms as it is, so the argument is silly.

As a side note - this is what dominated Coatesville in 1899 (big steel mill - Lukens Steel Company) -

And the same complex about 30 years later -

And believe it or not, based on they guy's reported latitude/longitude, he would have been reporting literally right across from that big steel plant which has the Brandywine Creek running alongside it (unless he was generically reporting the lat/long for the center of the town at that time for the records and he lived further out from there).  The below is what the area looks like today with the remnants of that steel plant and that red marker showing the approx. location of that lat/long on his report.

 

[Hurricane Agnes]

33 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

That 5.24 looks like the LE precip for the 12th, 13th and 14th. Looks like 10:1 ratio was assumed based on snow measurements, since it's pretty consistent.

Okay... am wondering if that was added before he turned it in (I noticed the rounding off of extra decimals for some of the numbers too with the cross-outs - I remember at work if we had to make a change to our worksheets, we would cross the original out, and then add the update but initial and date the modification so it wasn't considered "erased"... just updated ).

[LVwxHistorian]

28 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

That 5.24 looks like the LE precip for the 12th, 13th and 14th. Looks like 10:1 ratio was assumed based on snow measurements, since it's pretty consistent.

yes exactly what I was thinking!!  

[LVwxHistorian]

We've already discussed this at length in Old Crappy Coatesville Snowfall Records!   and I made my point there many times over!!    Don't upset me - I don't want to get banned again, LOL!! 

But i like the lat/lon info and I suspect he was at a significantly higher elevation that what he wrote

[ChescoWx]

Just using a straight 10:1 was not unusual back in the day. What is remarkable is the Coatesville records are so complete. When I first starting analyzing Chester County data back in the late 90's I noticed how many empty observation fields were missing at other long running observation sites like West Chester and Phoenixville (lots of empty snow reporting) . Coatesville has an extremely high % of complete data (all fields) compared to most other sites which makes it excellent for the weather analytics for the County that I enjoy.

[ChescoWx]

14 hours ago, Hurricane Agnes said:

The distance between Coatesville and Kennett Square is 14 miles and between Coatesville and West Chester is 18 miles.  Coatesville is also further away (west - ~44 miles) from the city of Philadelphia than either Kennett Square (~39 miles, where Kennett Square is also only 12 miles from Wilmington, DE) or West Chester (~36 miles). Coatesville is also NW of both Kennett Square and West Chester. So not sure what the relevance is? 

I am about 20 miles from KPHL and am about 13 miles from my old work site downtown Philly (before I retired) that is located near the Delaware River, and it can literally be like day and night (like the last storm).  So none of these locations are "close enough" to each other to be that comparative other than West Chester and Kennett Square being closer to each other (about 12 miles apart). And even with those two, the data that you selected is distinctly showing the significant differences between the Kennett Square and West Chester measurements for the 1899 and 1905 storms as it is, so the argument is silly.

As a side note - this is what dominated Coatesville in 1899 (big steel mill - Lukens Steel Company) -

And the same complex about 30 years later -

And believe it or not, based on they guy's reported latitude/longitude, he would have been reporting literally right across from that big steel plant which has the Brandywine Creek running alongside it (unless he was generically reporting the lat/long for the center of the town at that time for the records and he lived further out from there).  The below is what the area looks like today with the remnants of that steel plant and that red marker showing the approx. location of that lat/long on his report.

 

Amen Hurricane A!!  it was and still is a silly argument from our LV historian....

[ChescoWx]

Nice article from the Philly Inky on the differences from Philly to the burbs on snowfall

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/phillylists/Historic-snowfalls-Suburbs-totals-dominate.html

 

[JTA66]

I don't know why you guys bother to engage him, but you're free to post whatever you want.

And thank you Agnes and Paul for your historical insights.

[ChescoWx]

1 minute ago, JTA66 said:

I don't know why you guys bother to engage him, but you're free to post whatever you want.

And thank you Agnes and Paul for your historical insights.

Thanks JTA!!

[LVwxHistorian]

38 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

Amen Hurricane A!!  it was and still is a silly argument from our LV historian....

Then which stations should I compare it to sir, if not the ones closest to it?!!!!    I see the intelligence level here hasn't increased at all in my absence!

[Itstrainingtime]

10 minutes ago, LVwxHistorian said:

Then which stations should I compare it to sir, if not the ones closest to it?!!!!    I see the intelligence level here hasn't increased at all in my absence!

The intelligence level here dropped significantly with your return. Why is it so important to you to act like this towards good people? There's a reason why you were banned and the others were not - think about it. 

[ChescoWx]

6 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

The intelligence level here dropped significantly with your return. Why is it so important to you to act like this towards good people? There's a reason why you were banned and the others were not - think about it. 

No one else here ever insults others....this is a good friendly site - I don't think he adds much to the site...but just my opinion

[Itstrainingtime]

7 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

No one else here ever insults others....this is a good friendly site - I don't think he adds much to the site...but just my opinion

Agree completely. I live just outside of this thread's area to the west but enjoy reading the thoughts expressed in here. There's almost never anything but good discussion. It's equally hard and disappointing to read his "contributions" which seem to me to be little more than an attempt to be disruptive. 

[RedSky]

1 hour ago, ChescoWx said:

Nice article from the Philly Inky on the differences from Philly to the burbs on snowfall

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/phillylists/Historic-snowfalls-Suburbs-totals-dominate.html

 

Humorous that the article skips over any anomalous snow totals west of the city in 1899 but mentions a larger total in Camden 

 

[LVwxHistorian]

1 hour ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Agree completely. I live just outside of this thread's area to the west but enjoy reading the thoughts expressed in here. There's almost never anything but good discussion. It's equally hard and disappointing to read his "contributions" which seem to me to be little more than an attempt to be disruptive. 

Rude!!

[Itstrainingtime]

1 hour ago, LVwxHistorian said:

Rude!!

I don't think anyone who knows me in real life or on here would consider me rude. Think what you want to think, my challenge stands to you to read through your posts and consider how they're received in relation to how the rest on here post. If it's not obvious to you at that point, people will only assume that you're either trolling or at the very least need to post "better."

[LVwxHistorian]

40 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I don't think anyone who knows me in real life or on here would consider me rude. Think what you want to think, my challenge stands to you to read through your posts and consider how they're received in relation to how the rest on here post. If it's not obvious to you at that point, people will only assume that you're either trolling or at the very least need to post "better."

Well, I don't really care about your other posts - you're being very rude to me now.   I'm very knowledgeable in weather history having studied it for 30 years and am doing a graduate degree in ATMO right now. 

What are your credentials??