nebraska weather
nancy gaarder
nebraska weather by nancy gaarder
nebraska weather
by nancy gaarder EDITOR Dan Sullivan DESIGNER Christine Zueck-Watkins Photo IMAGING Jolene McHugh EXECUTIVE EDITOR Mike Reilly PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER Terry Kroeger
Copyright 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher, Omaha World-Herald Co. Omaha World-Herald Co., 1314 Douglas St., Omaha, NE 68102-1811 First Edition ISBN: 978-0-692-31051-9 Printed by Walsworth Publishing Co., Marceline, MO
from month to month, explore the variety of
nebraska weather 3 Introduction 11 january 27 february 39 march 51 april 69 may 85 june 105 july 123 august 137 september 153 october 171 november 183 december 200 almanac 202 ACknowledgments 205 credits & index may 27, 2014
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Storm clouds move north of the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha.
on the cover Over a year’s time, photographer Matt Miller made several trips to the Nebraska Sand Hills to photograph a crabapple tree near Hay Springs. Residents in the area say the tree was planted by Jules Sandoz, father of renowned Nebraska author Mari Sandoz. •
ON THE Title page: July 26, 2012
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A much-needed shower passes north of Hastings.
december 23, 2006
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Photographers relish an ice storm south of Berwyn.
a land made for sky watchers •
No place else on Earth has weather quite like the middle of the United States, so it’s no wonder that conversations in Nebraska easily turn to the weather. North America’s topography, the tilt of the Earth and the planet’s orbit around the sun all combine to create a land of extremes that is hard to rival. The planet’s strongest tornadoes grind through the country’s midsection with greater regularity than elsewhere, and the continent’s largest hailstones tend to fall here. Extreme temperature swings are an accepted way of life, and precipitation from year to year is anyone’s guess. A single storm system can drop a blizzard, tornadoes and flooding rains as it moves across the area. And if you don’t like the weather? Stick around five minutes, it’ll change. Weather watching is woven into the fabric of Nebraskans’ lives. Vicki Price of Blair can’t help but laugh when she recalls her son’s outdoor wedding. Sunny skies had been forecast, but it rained all day. As the wedding party crowded into a gazebo, they were followed by a gregarious, muddy dog. Long-stemmed roses fluttered like fans in the face of the pup who insisted on being part of the wedding party. “It was,” Price said, “a memorable wedding.” She didn’t lose faith in forecasts — it’s tough to get it right in this part of the world, she concedes. “The weather can be so changeable.”
i n t r o d u c tio n | n e bras k a w e at h e r | 3
January 4, 2010
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Fog rises from the MIssouri River on a morning with a low of 20 below zero in Omaha.
JANUARY •
On cold January nights, wisps of powdery snow skitter across Nebraska roadways, ghostly companions leading drivers forward. This is the depth of winter, the state’s coldest month. It is the driest month, too. With weather flowing from semiarid regions of northern Canada and the Arctic, the entire state averages less than an inch of precipitation. Light, dry snows are a breeze to sweep from driveways, easier than clearing grass cuttings in the summer. But heavier snows can occur when moist air from the south breaks through the atmospheric barrier established by the jet stream. And when storm systems get juiced up, wind-blown snow can fly so thick that plowing becomes pointless. Historic blizzards crossed the state in January of 1888, 1949 and 1975. Omaha averages 0.72 inches of precipitation in the month, less than an average week in May. Yet because the air is so cold, that moisture fluffs up, on average, to 6.1 inches of snow. In contrast, the warmer month of December brings Omaha nearly 45 percent more precipitation than January, but averages about the same amount of snow. Towns in the Panhandle are lucky to top one-third of an inch of precipitation during January, but the air is so cold and dry that it can fluff up to 4 or 6 inches there, too. Temperatures on average drop steadily into the third week of the month — even though daylight has been increasing since late in December. But by the end of the month, the Northern Hemisphere has leaned back into the sun enough that warming catches hold, and average temperatures begin to climb. While January average temperatures are the lowest, the month doesn’t hold the record for the coldest reading. December and February have seen the mercury drop to 47 degrees below zero, at Bridgeport in 1899 and at Oshkosh in 1989. Then there are balmy days, when the wind shifts to the south, and local golf courses open. Such a warmup proved lucky for three Omahans in 2012. Each scored a hole in one on January 30, a day when the temperature reached the highest on record for a January in Omaha, 69 degrees.
record high: 80� Beaver City, January 31, 1989
record low: -45� Walthill, January 12, 1912
j a n u a r y | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | 11
january 10-11, 1975 • blizzard The storm raged across eastern Nebraska and caused deaths in five states. Omaha, which had missed the brunt of the 1949 blizzard, counts this as its worst winter snowstorm. National Weather Service records for January 10 in Omaha show just an inch of snow on the ground at 6 a.m., but by 9 a.m., the city had declared a snow emergency. At one point an estimated 10,000 vehicles were stuck, stalled or abandoned. Late in the afternoon, the city called its snowplows back in — but two-thirds were stuck. Winds reached 60 mph, creating drifts as high as 10 feet and wind chills well below zero. Mayor Edward Zorinsky asked public establishments to remain open overnight as a haven for stranded motorists. By January 11, there were 13 inches on the ground, although parts of town had depths of up to 19 inches. Temperatures plunged on the 10th, from a high of 36 degrees at 1 a.m. to a low of 11 at midnight. On January 11, the high was 12 degrees and the low hit minus 2. Ten deaths in Omaha were attributed to the weather.
Pacific Street, looking east from 75th Street, was open to two lanes by midday on January 11. City plows didn’t finish clearing streets for days, as an estimated 2,000 stalled cars littered the streets.
Drivers navigate around abandoned vehicles that were half-buried in snowdrifts along 72nd Street south of Dodge.
A flag warns plowing crews of an abandoned, snow-covered car near 139th and Pacific Streets.
Drivers began to abandon their vehicles by the early afternoon of January 10.
Omaha’s 72nd Street, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, was shut down at the height of the storm. Traffic was barely moving even by noon the next day.
june 17, 2011
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Clouds move in for the start of the College World Series.
June •
Summer activities get into full swing as the days get longer. College World Series fans from across the country swarm into Omaha, and they often remember the state for its weather almost as much as its great baseball. Fans can encounter broiling sun, humidity as bad as anything in the Deep South and terrifying, fast-moving thunderstorms. June is Nebraska’s peak month for tornadoes, averaging 19 twisters. If rainfall has been sparse in earlier months, drought tends to take hold during June. Much of Nebraska typically sees its first 100-degree day in June, although the month rarely is as hot as July and August. Ice jams are old news, and heavy rains are the likely cause of any flooding. The 1993 Missouri River flood resulted from large storms stalling over the Midwest beginning in June. Deadlier flash flooding occurs when heavy rains fall along tributaries unable to accommodate the runoff. An Omaha-area flash flood in the Big Papillion Creek watershed killed seven people in 1964. In 2010, relentless rain — about 12 inches in 16 days in northeast Nebraska — caused widespread flash flooding along the Platte and Eklhorn Rivers. One person was killed, and several towns — including North Loup, Ericson and parts of Norfolk — were evacuated as four dams collapsed. By the end of the month, tornado season is winding down and straight-line winds tend to be the main cause of wind damage. When straight-line winds maintain damaging speeds for hundreds of miles, they’re known as derechoes, which comes from the Spanish word meaning “straight ahead.” One such windstorm originated in eastern Nebraska in 2010 and caused heavy damage in four states by the time it blew itself out. Winds near Bennington reached 90 to 110 mph, the equivalent of an EF1 tornado. Despite the increased chances for violent weather, June also is the month when Nebraska comes into full bloom, with wildflowers freshening the landscape in splashes of red, pink and yellow.
record high: 116� Beaver City, June 28, 2012
record low: 26� Harrisburg, June 2, 1969 Chadron, June 2, 1969
ju n e | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | 85
June 16, 2014 • Deadly twin tornadoes roared through the area near Pilger, with one causing major damage, killing two people and injuring two dozen. The twins were unusual for their similar strength and proximity to each other, weather experts said. It’s more common for a large tornado to have a smaller, satellite tornado rotating around it, or for two tornadoes to coexist as a significant twister weakens and another forms. But the Pilger twisters were similar to the pair that wiped out Greensburg, Kansas, in 2007.
96 | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | ju n e
ju n e | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | 97
july 25, 2013
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Growing storm clouds provide a backdrop for Nebraska’s Big Rodeo in Burwell.
118 | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | july
july 26, 2006
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Lightning flashes from a thunderhead north of Alliance.
july 28, 2003
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A passing cloud covers the sun near Oshkosh.
july | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | 119
OCTOBER 31, 1941
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An early snow slows traffic along Dodge Street.
168 | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | O C T O BER
OCTOBER 31, 1941
OCTOBER 31, 1941
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Ice brought down telephone lines near Boys Town.
Snow snapped tree branches along Happy Hollow Boulevard.
O C T O BER | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | 169
november 10, 2012 • The wind finishes its work in clearing leaves from the trees at Gene Leahy Mall in Omaha.
november •
As fall transitions toward winter, November can be all over the board. Some Novembers are so mild that golfers can hit the links almost daily. In 2012, during a drought, Omaha received noticeable rain on only one day in November, and temperatures peaked between 50 degrees and 77 degrees nearly two-thirds of the days in the month. When the seasonal shift occurs abruptly, the consequences can be devastating. In 1940, the historic Armistice Day freeze on November 11 killed many fruit trees and vineyards at farms in southeast Nebraska. Temperatures dropped 50 degrees in two hours, bottoming out at 20 degrees. The sap in trees and vines froze and caused trunks to split. Nearly 100 orchards and vineyards never replanted, and much of their land was converted to row crops. Early snowstorms sometimes are a harbinger of a harsh winter ahead. That was the case in 1948-1949, when a November 18 blizzard launched a paralyzing, deadly winter. Like subsequent blizzards that winter, heroic acts kept the deaths of stranded travelers to a minimum. In 1983, a Thanksgiving weekend blizzard was the prelude to a winter that was particularly frigid. It was also long — O’Neill had to clear away nearly a foot of snow in March for its annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. The southward migration of waterfowl typically is in full swing in November. Geese bark overhead as they follow each other southward along the central and Missouri River flyways. Following the clouds of waterfowl are eagles, once on the brink of extinction, but now common from one end of the state to the other. Fall brings another hunter to the state’s forests, fields and waterways. Clad in camouflage or bright orange, Nebraskans search for game to stock their winter larders.
record high: 94� Cambridge, November 15, 1990
record low: -28� Springview, November 22, 1898
n ov e m b e r | N E B R A S K A WE AT H E R | 171
august 1, 2006
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A rainbow marks the welcome passing of a shower between Chadron and Harrison in an area plagued by wildfires.
nebraskans can’t stop
thinking about the weather for a simple reason: It’s impossible to ignore.
Freezing cold can replace blistering heat in just a few days’ time. A single storm can unleash a blizzard, tornadoes and flooding as it crosses the state. World-Herald weather reporter Nancy Gaarder explains why Nebraskans can’t stop watching the skies. The newspaper’s photographers show how the state’s wide-open landscape provides the perfect stage for spectacular storms overhead and the sunset encores as the clouds pass. nebraska weather takes you through the 12 months to show the variety the skies have to offer and looks back on some of the devastating events that have become woven into the memories of the state’s residents.
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nebraska: a land made for sky watchers