We're at the 50th Anniversary of one of the biggest weather occurrences in Chicagoland history, the greatest snowfall event of all recorded weather history in Chicago: Back on January 26-27, 1967, 23 inches of snow fell across the area, which brought pretty much everything to a standstill. Vehicles got stuck on roadways, with many unable to get home from work that night, and some people stayed stranded at work.
These big snowstorms, with totals of more than 20 inches of snowfall, have only been recorded five times since weather records began for Chicago. There are truly one of a kind events that stand out in the memories of those who live through them.
This giant snow happened long before I came around, and it's interesting to look at archived news coverage and retrospectives pieces on the event. I can sense the scale of it as I think about my experiences with two of the other big snowfalls in recorded Chicago weather history, the early January 1999 snowfall, and the major blizzard at the start of February 2011, as well as the one at the start of February 2015. I can remember the hype that built up toward the storm as the meteorologists made it clear that something big was happening, although I downplayed it enough with the two more recent events that when they turned out as big as they did, I was almost caught off guard. As a child back in 1999, I can recall the big piles of snow, which were about my height.
In all these cases, powerful forces in the atmosphere caused vigorous motions that supported large storms, both in the horizontal scale across a large geographic area, but even more so in the vertical scale, to allow for intense atmospheric motions that caused high rates of snowfall, also driven by the plentiful available moisture.
These kinds of major snowfalls speak to the nature of the infrastructure that supports our modern-day life in the United States, and how they can be crippled when such a massive snowfall topping 20 inches. It makes think about something I read in Poorer Richard's America: What Would Ben Say?, a book written in the witty style of Benjamin Franklin that is a commentary on various aspects of modern life and society in the United States. The author pokes fun at the idea of cities shutting down due to colossal snowfall, when people back in the 18th Century fared well and carried on with their lives because their infrastructure was simpler and they could get along fine when the weather turned nasty, not to mention that in the largely rural society that dominated 18th Century America, people had to be much hardier to survive.
This commentary gave me pause, for while this infrastructure brings us much convenience, it's become so engrained in our daily lives and we depend on it so much that it becomes problematic when something like a major blizzard happens. Indeed, even the robust nature of modern society in a major city like Chicago is no match for Mother Nature's fury, which I think is the important lesson to be learned. (Of course, Chicagoland proves pretty hardy in the face of snowfalls up to about 18 inches--just ask OPRFHS students and staff, who've only had a handful of weather-related closures since the 1870's owing to a handful of extreme snowfalls and cold spells.)
These events remind us of the importance of having a plan in place to cope with significant weather events, having supplies ready to make it through comfortably until things clear up, both the weather as well as roads that provide access for transport of people and resources. And it's important that the meteorological community that forecasts these events effectively communicates the nature of the impending event to the people who are to be impacted so they can take appropriate action, especially municipalities in getting people to leave work and school early so they don't get stuck on the roads, especially if we consider what happened in Chicago back in February 2011, or in the Atlanta Metro Area in January 2014, as well as for the end users to full understand what the meteorologists communicate.
Fortunately, despite the impact snow events can have, they are usually not as destructive as something like a tornado that is swift and often deadly in its furor, especially considering the lack of debris left in the wake of a snowfall versus a tornado. It just takes a ton of effort to clear the snow from streets. And it's usually easy enough to ride out the storm at home without the threat of imminent destruction. Plus, all the snow can make for lots of fun, especially for the children.
Check out this article posted on the National Weather Service Chicago(land)/Romeoville Forecast Office website that shares more details on the 1967 storm. The graphic at the bottom has some interesting statistics on the top 5 Chicago(land) snowfalls, which show that each was intense in differing factors, whether it be duration of snowfall, liquid equivalent, or maximum wind speeds.
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