The very cold Christmas of 1872 began on December 19-20, 1872, when a significant storm system moved northwestward through the Great Lakes. Chicago reported numerous train delays coming from the west, and streets were blocked with drifts in some places. Further east, the storm brought heavy rains to places like Pittsburgh, which saw its river shipping wharfs flooded. Similar to the events of February 1899 and January 1994, this storm seems to have been the catalyst for a major arctic outbreak.
Temperatures began plummeting in the Upper Midwest. By December 21st, reports from Minnesota put temperatures at well below -20, but temperatures were already well below freezing in Ohio. On the 22nd, ice on the Ohio River broke several barges loose from their moorings in Cincinnati and sank them.
Official records of daily weather did not begin in Columbus until the summer of 1878. However, the cold weather did not go unreported. The entire week leading into Christmas was cold, but the arctic air seems to have reached its height on Christmas Eve and Day. Temperatures fell well below zero, with thermometers hitting -10 to -20 across Central Ohio on Christmas Eve. Temperatures continued below zero on Christmas Day. The Columbus Dispatch, barely a year into its first year of publication, wrote about the cold spell on December 26th.
“A cold spell, a tidal wave, so to speak, has been sweeping all around and over us for the last 48 hours. It was a wave not fully reported by ‘Probabilities’ at Washington, but came through the air, without telegraphic warning, from some frigid region adjacent to the North Pole. This morning we hear of various figures below zero. It is well to shut up the doors, double-bank the windows, pile on the coal, wrap up in furs, and make ready for an Esquimaux winter. This morning, the wave brought “beautiful snow”, but it did not tarry long enough to settle down to a steady habit and snow us up. The snow breeze passed on. We are pleased that it delayed, no longer. Three such days were enough, even though one of them was Christmas. We will be content if we never see its like again this winter.”
Temperatures were cold across the Great Lakes during the period. In Cleveland, where Lake Erie normally modifies the temperature, it fell to -12 on the 22nd and was -2 on Christmas morning.
After the Christmas Week cold spell, the rest of the winter had several more bouts of severe cold. In some places in the Midwest and Great Lakes, it was one of the coldest winters ever. In Minneapolis, the average temperature over the 3 winter months was just 7.9 degrees, putting it as one of the top 5 coldest winters ever even today.
The fall of 1993 had been largely uneventful and a bit warm after the Halloween Snowstorm. November had been quiet and the first 20 days of December averaged almost 6 degrees above normal with just a trace of snowfall. Temperatures gradually cooled through the 3rd week of the month and then went below normal by the 23rd with highs generally from the upper teens to mid-20s. Along with the colder pattern came persistent snowshowers that lasted the rest of the month, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. January was about to change that.
Two snowstorms struck the state in January, the first on January 3-4 and the second, larger event on the 16th and 17th. It was this storm that pulled in a vast reservoir of arctic air into the Ohio region. A very cold high pressure area had been parked just north of the US-Canada border beginning on the 14th, bringing highs in the single digits on the 15th and lows below zero from the 14th on.
WINTER PLUNGING CITY INTO FIRST DEEP FREEZE Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) – January 14, 1994
Columbus will begin to slide into the deep freeze today with temperatures plunging below zero tonight and Saturday night. The wind chill will average 30 below zero during the cold spell. The weather will be the coldest of this winter thus far – and the first time Columbus temperatures have fallen below zero since last Feb. 18 when it dipped to minus 2. The cold spell won’t linger.
“We will start to notice a rebound in temperature, maybe not on Sunday but certainly on Monday,” said Ken Reeves, senior meteorologist for Accu-Weather.
The Accu-Weather forecast calls for temperatures in the midteens at 7 a.m. today and falling to the single digits by day’s end. The overnight low will be minus 5. Saturday’s daytime high will be about 4. Saturday night the temperature will fall to minus 8, recovering to 15 above Sunday. The low Sunday night will be 11 above. Temperatures should be in the 20s by Monday. The cause of the cold is a shift in the jetstream, which normally brings air from southern Canada. The shift will bring colder arctic air from northern Canada, which will plunge the Northern Plains, the Midwest and the Northeast into very cold weather. Minnesota and the eastern sections of North Dakota and South Dakota will have temperatures of 20 to 30 below zero Saturday. Residents will need to dress warmly under the sudden surge of cold air here. Those with poor circulation, particularly the elderly, should be especially careful. Layers of clothing provide the best protection because layers trap air, which serves as insulation.
“The more layers, the better,” said Reeves.
He said mittens are preferable to gloves, which isolate the fingers. Care should be taken not to cramp the toes by wearing two thick pairs of socks. Cramping can restrict circulation, which is needed to warm extremities.
“If you wear two pairs, don’t wear two thick pairs,” said Reeves. “The key is, you don’t want to slow the circulation. The blood supply is what keeps your hands and feet warm.”
Noses should be covered, and parents should make sure their children are properly dressed, he said. Faucets should be left dripping in poorly insulated houses and homes where pipes are subject to cold-weather freezing. Typically, extreme cold weather sends more people into shelters for the homeless. “It brings in the people who would normally try and rough it, the people who don’t like the shelter,” said Charles Oris, director of men’s services for Faith Mission. Oris expected no problems providing shelter during the weekend for more homeless people. The mission can provide extra sleeping areas and has an overflow facility at the downtown YMCA at Long and Front streets.
As you can see, there was no mention of the snowstorm that would begin just a few days later. The following day, Saturday, January 15, 1994, the paper did mention the upcoming snowfall, but only 2-4″ were forecast.
By the early morning of Sunday, January 16th, Wilmington issued a Winter Storm Watch for Sunday Night into Monday. This was the first indication the storm would be much more significant.
COLUMBUS AND VICINITY FORECAST NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE COLUMBUS OH 406 AM EST SUN JAN 16 1994 …WINTER STORM WATCH TONIGHT AND MONDAY… .SUNDAY…PARTLY SUNNY EARLY…THEN BECOMING CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW BY LATE AFTERNOON. HIGH NEAR 20. MAINLY SOUTH WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF SNOW 40 PERCENT. .TONIGHT…SNOW…POSSIBLY HEAVY AT TIMES. SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS LIKELY. TEMPERATURES NEARLY STEADY IN THE UPPER TEENS EARLY…THEN RISING INTO THE MIDDLE 20S BY DAYBREAK. SOUTH WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH. CHANCE OF SNOW 100 PERCENT. .MONDAY…SNOW…POSSIBLY HEAVY IN THE MORNING…DIMINISHING TO FLURRIES IN THE AFTERNOON. HIGH IN THE MIDDLE 20S. CHANCE OF SNOW 80 PERCENT.
At the time, official forecasts did not go much past 3-5 days. By Sunday afternoon, the Watch had changed to a Heavy Snow Warning, a type of advisory that is no longer in use.
COLUMBUS AND VICINITY FORECAST NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE COLUMBUS OH 337 PM EST SUN JAN 16 1994 …HEAVY SNOW WARNING FOR TONIGHT AND MONDAY… TONIGHT…SNOW…HEAVY AT TIMES. SNOW ACCUMULATING 2 TO 4 INCHES. TEMPERATURE RISING INTO THE MIDDLE 20S BY DAYBREAK. SOUTH WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF SNOW NEAR 100 PERCENT. .MONDAY…SNOW…HEAVY AT TIMES…TAPERING TO FLURRIES IN THE AFTERNOON. ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS EXPECTED. HIGH IN THE UPPER 20S. SOUTH WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH BECOMING WEST. CHANCE OF SNOW NEAR 100 PERCENT. .MONDAY NIGHT…VARIABLE CLOUDINESS WITH A CHANCE OF FLURRIES. BITTERLY COLD WITH A LOW AROUND ZERO. CHANCE OF SNOW 40 PERCENT. .TUESDAY…VARIABLE CLOUDINESS WITH A CHANCE OF FLURRIES. BITTERLY COLD WITH A HIGH OF ZERO TO 5 ABOVE. CHANCE OF SNOW 40 PERCENT.
Aside from the storm itself- which was now forecast to drop 4″-8″- the public was alerted to the extreme cold coming on the backside.
The storm itself was significant and larger than expected for many areas. By the end of the day on the 17th, 7.8″ had fallen at Port Columbus. Almost all of the state had at least 6″ from the storm, but 20″-30″ fell to the south and east of Columbus. During the height of the storm, Chillicothe reported a snowfall rate exceeding 5″ per hour! As this storm moved away, it pulled cold air directly south, which failed to warm over the fresh snowpack.
Temperatures in Columbus fell to 0 by midnight on the 17th and continued to drop throughout the next day. The Noon temperature on the 18th was -9 degrees, -13 by 7pm and -17 by midnight. The peak of the cold was reached at 6am on Wednesday, January 19th when the temperature at Port Columbus dropped to 22 degrees below zero. This temperature was the lowest official temperature ever recorded in the city, beating out the 3 times that the city recorded -20 (1879, 1884, 1899).
Across the state, temperatures were 20-35 degrees below zero, and these extremely low readings were more widespread than in any other previous arctic outbreak on record, securing its place in history as the worst arctic outbreak of all time for Ohio.
Some of the State’s Coldest Low Temperatures for January 18-19, 1994 Logan: -37 New Lexington: -35 Eaton: -33 Chillicothe: -29 Delaware: -28 Bellefontaine: -27 Westerville: -27 Akron: -25 Dayton: -25 Marysville: -25 Cincinnati: -24 Newark: -24 Wilmington: -24 Circleville: -22 Columbus: -22 Youngstown: -22 Cleveland: -20
