Winter of 1976 was what a ‘real winter’ is like
Following a series of generally mild winters over the eastern United States beginning in 1971-72 the extremely cold winter of 1976-77 came as a rude shock to most people.
Fuel shortages quickly followed the cold air as the frozen rivers and lakes made transportation difficult. Commerce and the economy were crippled as almost nothing was moving due to the extreme cold and large snowfalls. Snow drifts were enormous and the winds quickly closed newly plowed roads. The National Guard had to be called out to help open roads and bring in deliveries of fuel. Mountain roads remained impassible for weeks due to the howling winds, continued snowfall and drifting snow. All the major rivers in Southwestern Pennsylvania remained frozen for weeks as the cold air settled in to stay.
The average temperature for January 1977 was 12 degrees. This was a new record and was 6 degrees colder than the old record of 17 degrees set in 1940. To show how extreme cold this was the average January temperature is 29. The cold was so intense that we experienced below zero temperatures for 50 hours from 10 am January 16 to 12 pm January 18. During that period, the lowest temperature recorded was -17 below zero. The area also recorded 33 consecutive days of temperatures below freezing from December 26, 1976 until January 27.
Six January records for cold were set in 1977 as follows:
n January 9 -4
n January 13 -17
n January 14 -15
n January 17 -9
n January 18 -9
n January 30 -5
The National Weather Service blamed the intense cold on the strongest blocking high pressure system that had ever been observed in the Arctic. It is interesting to note that 1976 was also the coldest year on record with an annual temperature of 48.
On January 20, a strange thing happened in weather history as snow fell for the first time ever in Miami, Florida, and a few wet snow flakes were observed in the Bahamas. The following winter of 1977-78 was also one for the record books with the blizzard of 鈥�78 being known as the 鈥淲hite Hurricane.鈥� Certainly the talk in those days was not about global warming.
This coming week, we will experience Ground Hog Day and it will be interesting to see what Phil has to say about the remaining days of winter. The January thaw of 2017 will certainly go into the record books as temperatures are averaging way above normal. My thoughts are that it should be a bit cooler for the next week or so with a bit of snow.