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November 11, 2011 November 11, 2011 November 11, 2011 November 11, 2011
The Great Blue Norther of 11/11/11
Oklahoma's record cold and high temperatures of 17 and 83 degrees, obviously and
respectively, on November 11, 1911, remains one of the state's most venerated
weather accomplishments. The remarkableness of the day holds not only for what
was accomplished then, but also for standing through the intervening 100 years
until today. Lest we Oklahomans think we hold the rights to all the extremes of
that day, we should remember that November 11, 1911, remains a very famous day
up and down the Great Plains. Locations up and down the central U.S. suffered
similar pleasant beginnings followed by extreme temperature drops and new record
highs and lows.
Location High Low
Oklahoma City 83 17
Kansas City 76 11
St. Louis 78 18
Springfield 80 13
Most, if not all, of those other locations have seen those records begin to fall
away. Springfield's record high of 80 degrees set on November 11 was tied in
1989, but its record low still stands alone at 13 degrees. Kansas City's new
record high/low temperatures for the date are 81 and 9 degrees.
Tulsa's high that day of 85 degrees remains a record, although it was tied in
1989. Pauls Valley and Pawhuska both dropped 71 degrees according to official
data from the National Climatic Data Center. Pauls Valley went from a high of
87 degrees to a low of 16 degrees and Pawhuska followed from 84 degrees to 13
degrees. You can see the original reporting forms for those locations here.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20111111/pawhuska-nov1911.pdf
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20111111/paulsvalley-nov1911.pdf
This weather map from the Weather Bureau shows the culprit. A large high
pressure system plunging into the Central Plains along the lee of the Rockies.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20111111/nov11-1911-wx-map.jpg
The warm moist air being pumped into the Plains fueled powerful storms across
the upper Midwest with nine tornadoes being reported. An F4 tornado struck
Janesville, Wisconsin. Survivors were left to pick through the rubble in
blizzard conditions. Nine fatalities were reported with that tornado.
An account in "The Daily Oklahoman" the following day boast of a "43-degree drop
within an hour" and a wind gust of 52 mph measured by the Weather Bureau office.
The paper declared "November 11, 1911, most emphatically was 'some day,' and
then some more." The temperature was reported as 18 degrees at 10 p.m. that
night.
Other accounts tell of a disruption in Oklahoma City's cable car service due
to the high winds. A large plate glass window was blown out of the Whittaker
Drug building, as well as at the Varvel Drug store. The wind blew the hat off
of a young woman driving slowly north on Broadway as she was riding in her
"little electric runabout." A man in a passing automobile stopped to retrieve
her hat for her and the wind then blew his hat off and deposited it at her
feet in her car. "They exchanged head-gears, and each drove on," according
to the paper.
A wedding couple, Clay Moore of El Reno and Margerite Weidel from Geary sat
huddled in blankets in an automobile in front of an Oklahoma City hotel "while
the wind shrieked a gale and the thermometer hovered near the 18-degree mark."
The Reverend Thomas Harper performed married them on the spot, "with his ulstor
collar turned up about his ears, shivering in the cold wind." The bride and
groom were announced as man and wife and they went directly to the Frisco
depot.
For more accounts of this momentous day in Plains weather history, visit some
of the local NWS office websites.
Norman: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=events-19111111
Kansas City: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/eax/?n=nov_11_1911
Springfield: http://test.crh.noaa.gov/sgf/?n=event_1911nov11_user1
Des Moines: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/dmx/GBN.pdf
St. Louis: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/?n=11/11/1911coldsnap
Gary McManus
Associate State Climatologist
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
(405) 325-2253
gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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