1870s Historic Winter Highlights

[BLI snowman]

Recently got access to some 19th century data for Western Oregon from Eola, which is just west of Salem.

Data runs from 1870-1892.

The 1880s and 1890s are a little more accessible data wise, but I thought I'd share some 1870s winter highlights for anyone who's interested since that timeframe tends to pre-date most of the info we have online through the NCDC/NOAA. 

January 1870:

Two arctic events, the first peaking with a 30/17 on the 4th and the second peaking with a 24/16 day on the 18th with some overrunning.

March 1870:

Absolutely historic event. 28/20 on the 13th, 28/22, on the 14th, and 35/31 on the 15th. This one produced a huge overrunning snow event for what seemed to be most of the region, as well as some arctic front snow on the 12th. 

December 1870:

Very cold month, every high from 11th-27th was under 40. Cold wave peaked on the 21st with a 30/9 day.

January 1871:

32/27 on 17th with an overrunning storm.

November 1871:

Early snow and arctic air with a 32/29 on 26th and 30/27 on 29th.

December 1871:

Another huge month with two major airmasses. First one peaked at 20/17 on the 18th and the second peaked at 19/7 on the 26th. No snow data but clearly a ton fell with a very white Christmas.

January 1872:

Another chilly month with a 35/14 on the 25th and a 32/28 overrunning on the 30th.

February 1872:

25/8 with a 9" snowstorm on the 5th.

November 1872:

Historic early event with a 29/26 on the 13th and 28/26 on the 14th. No snow data but I know that Portland had its earliest significant snowstorm on record with this.

December 1872:

Quick cold wave with 29/24 on the 16th and 30/27 on the 17th. Maybe some inversion magic?

February 1873:

Impressively cold month throughout, with a 31/24 on both the 1st and 2nd. Also a 36/28 on the 7th, 36/30 on the 16th, 35/26 on the 25th, and 36/32 on the 26th. Kind of February 2019-esque. 

November-December 1873:

This one unfortunately is missing December data but another great stretch.  First a very early cold wave with 39/33 on November 2nd, then a 7.5" snowstorm on the 30th that ushered in a huge two week cold wave that froze the rivers and produced single digits in Portland, and dropped significant snow down to Sacramento.

March 1874:

8" of snow noted on the 3rd, though the daily temp readings were 45/36. A very wet and sloppy snow, but Portland had 15" and Astoria about 8" that month so it checks out. Andrew probably got buried.

January 1875:

Historically cold month with nine subfreezing highs, four of which were under 20 . This included an 8/4 day on the 13th with 5" of snow, and a 13/8 transition day on the 18th with 4" of snow. Low of 2 on the 17th. 

April 1875:

A 38/27 day on the 4th. Probably the latest semi pure arctic air advection on record in NW OR. 

January 1876:

Extended late month cold spell. Included 25/20 on the 22nd with 2" of snow, and a 34/28 on the 27th with 4.5".

1876-77 and 1877-78 were mostly sucky Nino years. Yes, they happened back then as well. Still managed a few subfreezing highs in December 1876 from an inversion, and a little cold spell in early January 1878 that produced a 32/17.

January 1879:

Extended cold wave around New Years which peaked with a 32/14 on the 4th. Looks like the Willamette Valley missed out on the big February snowstorm later that winter that nailed Portland and Seattle.

December 1879:

Unlike the early January 1880 snows, this one was focused over NW OR. Amazing event for the valley with a 13.5" snowstorm on the 20th followed by an 18/-8 day on the 23rd. 

The rest of the 1879-80 winter was also pretty great for the valley though, with 12" late in January 1880 and a 5" snowstorm on February 16 with a 35/24. Also snowed 4.5" in early March and then there was a 38/28 on March 12  and 38/34 overrunning on March 16 with a late season arctic airmass. 

 

Edited July 26 by BLI snowman

[snow_wizard]

Great stuff as always.  The 1870s have proven to be very difficult to fill in the holes for the Puget Sound region.  1860s and 1880s are much more complete.

March 1870 was one for the ages up here for such a late event.  December 1871 was incredible and thankfully there are partial records for Seattle that month and March 1870 for that matter.  January 1875 was the premier cold event of the decade from what I can gather.  All in all my data from the 1870s is pretty lacking and much of what I have is from locations right on the water so the temperature extremes are muted.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Let's replicate this sometime. 

[BLI snowman]

19 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Great stuff as always.  The 1870s have proven to be very difficult to fill in the holes for the Puget Sound region.  1860s and 1880s are much more complete.

March 1870 was one for the ages up here for such a late event.  December 1871 was incredible and thankfully there are partial records for Seattle that month and March 1870 for that matter.  January 1875 was the premier cold event of the decade from what I can gather.  All in all my data from the 1870s is pretty lacking and much of what I have is from locations right on the water so the temperature extremes are muted.

Yeah, 1871-72 was the best all around winter of that decade and cracked 50" for snowfall in Portland overall. Not as continuously cold as some other greats, but what it lacked in continuity it made up for through having a large number of quick arctic airmasses spread throughout the season. Something more akin to the Eastern US. 

January 1875 was just insane. Astoria had a high of 12 on the 13th, that's 7 degrees lower than their modern record low maximum. New Westminster, BC right outside of Vancouver had six consecutive sub-zero lows and a monthly mean of 21.56F which is about dead even with January 1950 up there.

Astoria also pulled off a nutso 33/29 on April 4, 1875. Not sure I buy that one, but that was clearly a hell of an airmass.

Feel free to share whatever Seattle data you have in this thread. It's fun to piece these 19th century winters together and get some sense of a play-by-play for the region.

[TT-SEA]

How were summers in the 1870s?   

[BLI snowman]

52 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

How were summers in the 1870s?   

Nothing like today.

Eola's maximum observed temps by year:

1870: 93 (although this was a higher end heat wave there in early July and Seattle actually reached 100 at a station in the city)

1871: 91 (Eola had back to back 58/52 days on July 27-28 with light rain)

1872: 88 (cool summer, Eola again had a 57/51 on July 28 with light rain)

1873: 93 (Eola pulled off a 54/52 with rain on July 12)

1874: 89 (pretty consistently pleasant summer, no significant cold)

1875: 90 (actually a fairly warm July for the time)

1876: 91 (Eola is missing data from the June heat wave which got Portland to 99)

1877: 89 (consistently cool throughout and fairly wet)

1878: 94 (one and done heat wave in early June, cool midsummer)

1879: 90 (another consistent warm midsummer stretch but nothing like today)

Several things to keep in mind are the observed highs are from 2pm readings, so these were likely a few degrees underdone during the summer. But this is also the Salem area that we're talking about, which even in the 1870s probably ran a good 7-11 degrees warmer on average than most of western WA near the water. The Seattle area was likely barely breaking 85 in a lot of these years.

Most of these summers were just scraping into the 90s at their hottest points in the mid Willamette Valley. So kind of the rough equivalent of modern day Whatcom County. The relative lack of days even in the high 80s tells me that even with the true highs being a bit warmer, there was relatively little in the way of hot offshore flow back then. The default patterns were 65-85 all the way for western OR in the midsummer. 

The warm season was also much more abbreviated back then and you could usually count on one end of the warm season or another to feature a prolonged <70 stretch with what appeared to be extensive cloudcover. 

Edited July 26 by BLI snowman

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 hour ago, BLI snowman said:

Nothing like today.

Eola's maximum observed temps by year:

1870: 93 (although this was a higher end heat wave there in early July and Seattle actually reached 100 at a station in the city)

1871: 91 (Eola had back to back 58/52 days on July 27-28 with light rain)

1872: 88 (cool summer, Eola again had a 57/51 on July 28 with light rain)

1873: 93 (Eola pulled off a 54/52 with rain on July 12)

1874: 89 (pretty consistently pleasant summer, no significant cold)

1875: 90 (actually a fairly warm July for the time)

1876: 91 (Eola is missing data from the June heat wave which got Portland to 99)

1877: 89 (consistently cool throughout and fairly wet)

1878: 94 (one and done heat wave in early June, cool midsummer)

1879: 90 (another consistent warm midsummer stretch but nothing like today)

Several things to keep in mind are the observed highs are from 2pm readings, so these were likely a few degrees underdone during the summer. But this is also the Salem area that we're talking about, which even in the 1870s probably ran a good 7-11 degrees warmer on average than most of western WA near the water. The Seattle area was likely barely breaking 85 in a lot of these years.

Most of these summers were just scraping into the 90s at their hottest points in the mid Willamette Valley. So kind of the rough equivalent of modern day Whatcom County. The relative lack of days even in the high 80s tells me that even with the true highs being a bit warmer, there was relatively little in the way of hot offshore flow back then. The default patterns were 65-85 all the way for western OR in the midsummer. 

The warm season was also much more abbreviated back then and you could usually count on one end of the warm season or another to feature a prolonged <70 stretch with what appeared to be extensive cloudcover. 

That sounds like heaven. 

[snow_wizard]

Another point to be mentioned in this thread is that the 1860s and 1880s were much more impressive from a cold and snow standpoint than the 1870s were.  Certainly true for the Puget Sound region at least.  I was thinking today about which of those decades I would choose if I could experience it verbatim.  Still can't decide....

[Meatyorologist]

6 hours ago, BLI snowman said:

Nothing like today.

Eola's maximum observed temps by year:

1870: 93 (although this was a higher end heat wave there in early July and Seattle actually reached 100 at a station in the city)

1871: 91 (Eola had back to back 58/52 days on July 27-28 with light rain)

1872: 88 (cool summer, Eola again had a 57/51 on July 28 with light rain)

1873: 93 (Eola pulled off a 54/52 with rain on July 12)

1874: 89 (pretty consistently pleasant summer, no significant cold)

1875: 90 (actually a fairly warm July for the time)

1876: 91 (Eola is missing data from the June heat wave which got Portland to 99)

1877: 89 (consistently cool throughout and fairly wet)

1878: 94 (one and done heat wave in early June, cool midsummer)

1879: 90 (another consistent warm midsummer stretch but nothing like today)

Several things to keep in mind are the observed highs are from 2pm readings, so these were likely a few degrees underdone during the summer. But this is also the Salem area that we're talking about, which even in the 1870s probably ran a good 7-11 degrees warmer on average than most of western WA near the water. The Seattle area was likely barely breaking 85 in a lot of these years.

Most of these summers were just scraping into the 90s at their hottest points in the mid Willamette Valley. So kind of the rough equivalent of modern day Whatcom County. The relative lack of days even in the high 80s tells me that even with the true highs being a bit warmer, there was relatively little in the way of hot offshore flow back then. The default patterns were 65-85 all the way for western OR in the midsummer. 

The warm season was also much more abbreviated back then and you could usually count on one end of the warm season or another to feature a prolonged <70 stretch with what appeared to be extensive cloudcover. 

Heaven

[Meatyorologist]

This is a great thread. Does anyone have data on the 1850s or earlier?

[TT-SEA]

8 hours ago, BLI snowman said:

Nothing like today.

Eola's maximum observed temps by year:

1870: 93 (although this was a higher end heat wave there in early July and Seattle actually reached 100 at a station in the city)

1871: 91 (Eola had back to back 58/52 days on July 27-28 with light rain)

1872: 88 (cool summer, Eola again had a 57/51 on July 28 with light rain)

1873: 93 (Eola pulled off a 54/52 with rain on July 12)

1874: 89 (pretty consistently pleasant summer, no significant cold)

1875: 90 (actually a fairly warm July for the time)

1876: 91 (Eola is missing data from the June heat wave which got Portland to 99)

1877: 89 (consistently cool throughout and fairly wet)

1878: 94 (one and done heat wave in early June, cool midsummer)

1879: 90 (another consistent warm midsummer stretch but nothing like today)

Several things to keep in mind are the observed highs are from 2pm readings, so these were likely a few degrees underdone during the summer. But this is also the Salem area that we're talking about, which even in the 1870s probably ran a good 7-11 degrees warmer on average than most of western WA near the water. The Seattle area was likely barely breaking 85 in a lot of these years.

Most of these summers were just scraping into the 90s at their hottest points in the mid Willamette Valley. So kind of the rough equivalent of modern day Whatcom County. The relative lack of days even in the high 80s tells me that even with the true highs being a bit warmer, there was relatively little in the way of hot offshore flow back then. The default patterns were 65-85 all the way for western OR in the midsummer. 

The warm season was also much more abbreviated back then and you could usually count on one end of the warm season or another to feature a prolonged <70 stretch with what appeared to be extensive cloudcover. 

Thanks... fascinating stuff!

Also the farther you go back in the 1800s the deeper you go back into the LIA as well.   

 

[BLI snowman]

6 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

This is a great thread. Does anyone have data on the 1850s or earlier?

Yep, Fort Steilacoom and Fort Vancouver both have their datasets run back to 1849. Some incomplete and obviously questionable data mixed, but still paints a pretty great picture of things from back then. Also have Fort Walla Walla back to 1857 and Fort Colville back to 1859 for an eastside barometer.

Let me know if you'd like an CSV copy of any of them, I'd be happy to PM you.

[snow_wizard]

9 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

This is a great thread. Does anyone have data on the 1850s or earlier?

I have the microfilm for Fort Steilacom back to late 1849.  An invaluable glimpse of our little ice age climate.  The 1860s and 1880s were actually more exciting than the 1850s.  I actually have those Fort Steilacom records digitized now.

[snow_wizard]

28 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Yep, Fort Steilacoom and Fort Vancouver both have their datasets run back to 1849. Some incomplete and obviously questionable data mixed, but still paints a pretty great picture of things from back then. Also have Fort Walla Walla back to 1857 and Fort Colville back to 1859 for an eastside barometer.

Let me know if you'd like an CSV copy of any of them, I'd be happy to PM you.

Colville would be fun to look at for Jan 1862.  Walla Walla is amazing enough.

[BLI snowman]

12 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Colville would be fun to look at for Jan 1862.  Walla Walla is amazing enough.

Colville had a 10/-6 average split that month. So a solid 3+ degrees colder than January 1937, which is their coldest month at the modern station.

March 1867 was also absolutely wild there. Colville hit -20 on the 12th. That's a number they've had a really difficult time achieving even in midwinter airmasses in this century so far, although they did finally get to -23 with the December 2022 event.

They also hit at least -33 in January 1875, which would tie December 1968 with the all-time low.

[Meatyorologist]

13 hours ago, BLI snowman said:

Yep, Fort Steilacoom and Fort Vancouver both have their datasets run back to 1849. Some incomplete and obviously questionable data mixed, but still paints a pretty great picture of things from back then. Also have Fort Walla Walla back to 1857 and Fort Colville back to 1859 for an eastside barometer.

Let me know if you'd like an CSV copy of any of them, I'd be happy to PM you.

Please do!

[Cascadia_Wx]

Excellent thread. This is the sort of stuff that keeps me coming back to this forum.

[Doinko]

On 7/26/2024 at 2:46 AM, Meatyorologist said:

This is a great thread. Does anyone have data on the 1850s or earlier?

I remember reading that 1842-1843 was very severe with ice on the Columbia river by December 14th, I'll try to find where I read that. 

[Doinko]

1 minute ago, Doinko said:

I remember reading that 1842-1843 was very severe with ice on the Columbia river by December 14th, I'll try to find where I read that. 

"Mount St. Helens erupted December 12, 1842. In Oregon, the winter of 1842-43 was exceptionally cold; ice blocked the Columbia River until March 13, 1843."
https://oregon.com/attractions/oregon-trail-timeline-1841-1843

Some other stuff:

"The temperature in Oregon City during mid-January of 1847
dropped to seven degrees below zero, and deep snows visited the Willamette Valley"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20612100?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents
 

"weather continued warm throughout the winter; but on the 12th of December 1842 the Columbia was frozen over, and the ice remained in the river at the Dalles till the middle of March, and the mercury was 6° below zero in that month, while in the Willamette Valley the cold was severe. On the other hand, in the winter of 1843 there was a heavy rainfall, and a disastrous freshet in the Willamette in February. The two succeeding winters were mild and rainy,[1] fruit forming on the trees in April; and again in the latter part of the winter of 1846–7 the Columbia was frozen over at Vancouver so that the officers of the Modeste played a curling match on the ice. The winter of 1848–9 was also cold, with ice in the Columbia."
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_History_of_Oregon_Bancroft_1888.djvu/58

 

[Doinko]

Winter of 1845-1846, looks like it was pretty mild:

The 1st and 2d days of November were clear; 3d rainy; then clear until the 11th; cloudy until the 13th. Then cloudy, with slight showers of rain until the 20th; 21st and 22nd clear;23d rainy; 24th and 25th were cloudy, but no rain; the weather was then clear until the29th, when it again clouded up.30th of November and first of December were cloudy; 2d and 3rd clear, with frosty nights .On the 4th a misty rain; 5th and 6th were cloudy; from 7th to 10th clear and cool, with frost every night. On the 11th it rained nearly all day, and on the 12th about half the day.13th and 14th were cloudy. From the 15th to 22d clear and pleasant, with frosty nights; it

thawed through the day in the sun all that froze at night, but in the shade remained frozen. From the 22d to 24th cloudy, with showers of drizzling rain; 25th, 26th and 27th rain nearly all the time, but not very copiously; the mornings were foggy. The 28th and 29th were clear, but very foggy in the forepart of the day; 30th and 31st rain about half the time. From the 1st to 3d of January it was squally, with frequent showers of rain; 4th cloudy, but no rain; 5th rained nearly all day. From the 6th to the 12th, clear and pleasant, being slightly foggy in the mornings; from 221 13th to 17th rained about half each day, and nearly all the night; 18th and 19th, cloudy without rain. The 20th and 21st, slight rain nearly all the time; 22d was cloudy; 23d and 24th, rain about half of each day; 25th rained all day,26th cloudy, without rain, 27th was rainy, some heavy showers; 28th was clear; 29th, 3othand 31st, were showery and blustering, raining about half the time, and foggy. The 1st of February was clear; 2d cloudy, 3d rainy; 4th and 5th were a little cloudy, but pleasant; 6th and 7th, a few slight showers; 8th and 9th rainy and quite cool; snow was seen on the lower peaks of the Coast range of mountains, but none in the valley. The 10th,was cloudy, at night a little frost; 11th was rainy; 12th and 13th rained all the time; 14thand 15th were nearly clear, with light frosts. The weather remained clear until the 23rd,with light frosts, but not cold enough to freeze the ground; 24th cloudy; 25th clear; 26th,27th, and 28th rained all the time.[120] First of March, rained half the day; 2d cloudy, 3d rained all day; 4th cloudy, 5th was showery—making in all about twenty days that it rained nearly all the day, and about forty days that were clear, or nearly so; the remainder of the days were cloudy and showery. A number of the days set down as rainy, a person with a blanket coat could have worked out all the day without having been wet. Much of the time it rained during the night, when it was clear through the day. I should think that two-thirds of the rain fell during the night. No snow fell in the valleys, nor were there frosts more than fifteen nights. Ice never formed much over a quarter of an inch in thickness. The little streams and “swales” 222

rise so high as to make it difficult to get about for a few days; but they are short, and soon run down. But little labour has yet been bestowed on the public roads. The Willamette river is the highway upon which nearly all the traveling is done, and upon which nearly all the products of the country are conveyed. The numerous streams can be easily bridged, and when this is done, there will be but little difficulty in traveling at any period of the year.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.th030/?sp=195&st=pdf&pdfPage=178

[Doinko]

Looks like there was a major snowstorm on December 15th, 1849 at Forest Grove. 20.5" of snow at once!

https://heritage.lib.pacificu.edu/s/wcho/item/129395

[BLI snowman]

9 hours ago, Doinko said:

Looks like there was a major snowstorm on December 15th, 1849 at Forest Grove. 20.5" of snow at once!

https://heritage.lib.pacificu.edu/s/wcho/item/129395

Yeah, that was the first winter with official records at Fort Vancouver. December 1849 was very chilly with 7 subfreezing highs during the month and the big snowy period mid-month. January 1850 was fairly cool but with no extreme cold. February 1850 was mostly mild but with some cold/snow at the end of the month. March 1850 was exceptionally cold by today's standards, with a monthly max of only 57 and a late arctic blast with a 34/27 on the 18th. 

Edited August 15 by BLI snowman