[Vision2020] Recalling Winters Past

Sun Feb 3 16:26:28 PST 2008

Ellen et. al.

The weather records do not lie:

For Moscow, Idaho:

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/daily/83843?climoMonth=1

Seven record setting cold days in 1950:

Jan. 14: minus 11 F.
Jan. 15: minus 17 F.
Jan. 17: minus 21 F.
Jan. 25: minus 21 F.
Jan. 29: minus 23 F.
Jan. 30: minus 18 F.
Jan. 31: minus 26 F.

-----------------------------
And regarding January 2006 two years ago, not one single day had a daily
high below freezing in Moscow.  I checked the temperature every day.  And
that January was the warmest on record for the whole USA:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2576.htm

The United States had its warmest January on
record<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/jan/national.html>,
with an average temperature of 39.5 degrees F, which is 8.5 degrees F
(4.7degrees C) above the 1895-2005 mean of
31.0 degrees F, according to the NOAA National Climatic Data
Center<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html>in Asheville,
N.C.
----------------------------
This winter Moscow is getting significant snow, but the temperatures are not
especially cold overall, considering what past cold spells have brought,
like in Jan. 1950, or in Feb. 1936:

Now this is a February cold snap, in 1936, Moscow:

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/daily/83843?climoMonth=2

Feb. 8   minus 14 F.
Feb. 13 minus 20 F.
Feb. 15 minus 19 F.
Feb. 16 minus 14 F.
Feb. 17 minus 16 F.
Feb. 18 minus   5 F.
Feb. 19             2 F.

-------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 2/3/08, Ellen Roskovich <gussie443 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> *Well, this old dinosaur remembers the winter of 1950. . . and a nasty one
> it was too.  We lived way out in Spokane in a big old, drafty farm house and
> I remember the iceman couldn't get through to deliver ice to our icebox.  I
> wasn't around here for the 68/69 winter. . . I was in Germany.  But that was
> a harsh winter for them as well.  We just haven't had a "real" winter in
> awhile. Two years ago I was fussing over a silly dandelion in my front yard
> that was blooming in January.*
> **
> *Ellen A. Roskovich*
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> From: carlwestberg846 at hotmail.com
> To: thansen at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
> Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 09:35:39 -0800
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Recalling Winters Past
>
> Good stuff, Tom.  Although I'm somewhat nonplussed to hear that I'm an
> "old-timer" if I tell people about that winter.  Carl Westberg Jr.
>
>  ------------------------------
> From: thansen at moscow.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 09:17:04 -0800
> Subject: [Vision2020] Recalling Winters Past
>
>  Those of you that have expressed your experiences with the Moscow Winter
> of 1968/69 are right.  What we have here this winter barely qualifies as a
> spring day in the park compared to Winter 1968/69.
>
>
>
> Video: Remembering the Snow
>
> http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/archive.asp?postID=337
>
>
>
> WSU Students Take Advantage of Snow Day
>
> http://www.spokesmanreview.com/media/video/?ID=1500
>
>
>
>
>
> A look back at some of the previous Great White Winters in Spokane.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Recalling Winters Past
>
> Jim Camden
>
> Staff writer
>
> February 3, 2008
>
>
>
> The snow was falling earlier this week, the drifts were getting impressive
> and television anchors were using tones befitting a wintery apocalypse.
>
>
>
> But it wasn't long before somebody said something like: "You think this is
> bad? Jeez, this is nothing. Why, back in the day ..."
>
>
>
> That got the staff at The Spokesman-Review wondering. How was this
> stacking up to past winters our readers remember?
>
>
>
> So we asked. Here are excerpts from some of the responses.
>
>
>
>
>
> Winters of 1950 and 1964
>
>
>
> Bill Wilson of Moses Lake thought back to 1950, when he was a student at
> the University of Washington.
>
>
>
> "It got down to zero – coldest ever for Seattle. I went home to visit for
> the weekend in Yakima; the weather there was 25 below. That's the coldest I
> ever remember for either Yakima or Moses Lake, where I moved in 1982."
>
>
>
> As for snow, Wilson recalls 36 inches falling in Yakima over about three
> days in 1964. "I was a child welfare social worker then. A state trooper and
> his wife were due that weekend from the coast to pick up a child they were
> adopting from a foster home. They came via train (before Amtrak, I believe).
> I picked them up at the train station and drove them in my Volkswagen beetle
> to the foster couple's isolated farmhouse. Almost no cars were on the road,
> but I had snow tires and excellent traction.
>
>
>
> "But when we came to the road leading to the farmhouse, it was totally
> blocked with huge snowdrifts, so by prearrangement the foster father drove
> across an open field with the little girl on his lap on a high-wheeled
> tractor to where the adoptive couple and I were waiting.
>
>
>
> "We made it back into town to a motel where the couple and the little girl
> spent the night, and they took the train home the following morning."
>
>
>
>
>
> Winter of 1968-69
>
>
>
> The winter of 1968-69 seems to be one of the most famous, or infamous, for
> Inland Northwest residents.
>
>
>
> Sue Hallett of Colfax recalled coming back to Gonzaga University after
> Christmas that year, when she was a freshman.
>
>
>
> "I lived at Catherine-Monica, a dorm on campus, and, raised in Yakima, I
> had never seen so much snow before in my life. Coming back to campus in the
> middle of the night from the Northern Pacific train depot after Christmas,
> the whole city looked like 'Dr. Zhivago.'
>
>
>
> "Somebody had abandoned an old car in front of our dorm and gradually it
> disappeared into the enormous berm of snow built up by the plows. I can
> remember climbing up and over the berm with my friend Michelle one day on
> our way to class. She reminded me that the old car was still there, under
> the snow. I didn't believe her, but, sure enough, as May approached, the
> roof of the old car re-emerged into view. Students were still heading off
> for ski trips as we got ready to go home for the summer."
>
>
>
>
>
> Winters of 1968, 1992 and 1996
>
>
>
> Tom Peacock of Cheney wrote that he recalled the winters of 1968 and 1992
> in Walla Walla as having significant snow, but the one snow fall that's at
> the center of his recollections was in the spring of 1996.
>
>
>
> "We had received a fairly substantial amount of snow in the valley and the
> mountains over a three-day period and then came the Chinook that melted it
> all. In fact, the streams and rivers were overwhelmed by the melt. My first
> indication came as I was watching the Weather Channel and they were focusing
> on Waitsburg, as having serious flooding issues. At the time I was a
> construction laborer and was off for the winter. I had my dad drive me up to
> Waitsburg to see what could do to help and was immediately put to work.
>
>
>
> "It was really quite an eye-opening experience over the next few months, I
> went back to work almost immediately as the company I had been working for
> was hired by the city of Dayton for cleanup work there, and also by the city
> of Walla Walla to repair the city's main water transmission line that
> carries water from the Watershed in the Blues down to the intake plant on
> the edge of town. The days just after the flooding were also quite
> interesting hearing all the rumors going around about bridges being held up
> by cranes, cars being plucked out of the river by cranes, etc."
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Stay safe.  Stay warm.
>
>
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
>
>
> Tom Hansen
>
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
>
>
>
> ***********************************
> Work like you don't need the money.
> Love like you've never been hurt.
> Dance like nobody's watching.
>
> - Author Unknown
> ***********************************
>
>
>
>
>
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