Historical weather info
Okay, so The Legal Genealogist is a little distracted today.
The forecast is for more than a foot of snow, maybe more than two feet of snow throughout the northeastern states, even here in Central New Jersey.
The Nor-Beaster!
Snowmageddon!
Bleah.
I hate winter.
Loathe it.
Hate snow. Hate cold. Hate the hassles, the headaches, the worrying about whether the power will stay on. (Did you know there’s no way to bypass the electronic ignition switch on modern gas furnaces? Which means no power, no heat. Did I say “bleah” yet?)
So I’m spending the morning scurrying around making sure the hatches are battened down, and you, dear reader, can spend the day looking at historical weather reports and sending sympathy towards all of us here in the northeast.
A wonderful resource for folks in New Jersey is the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist. That site has historical snowfall information recorded for more than 50 different locations as far back as the 1890s in some cases. The numbers used come from the National Weather Service, now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You can get a history of the National Weather Service at its website.
NOAA itself has a number of interesting offerings. It has its top weather, water and climate events list for the 20th century that you can review online or download as a PDF file. The NOAA News reports things like the 1899 arctic blast that paralyzed the eastern United States and carried ice down to the Gulf of Mexico.
And NOAA’s National Climatic Data Centeroffers a large number of options including maps showing temperature (current and historical conditions), snowfall, precipitation and more.
And there are a whole host of alternatives to these official sources:
• The Weather Base has some 33 years of weather records for New York City and at least some data for more than 29,250 other cities worldwide.
• The Weather Warehouse has Historical Monthly Weather Data “for over 18,000+ current and former United States weather stations for every year that each station reported” — which means, for example, for Central Park in New York City you can get data back to 1900, or for Decatur in Wise County, Texas, back to 1904.
• WeatherForYou has a daily bit of weather history (for yesterday, the key events were an overnight freeze in 1777 that helped George Washington and his troops flank the British to get to winter quarters and, sigh… some record highs in 1989).
• There’s still an Old Farmer’s Almanac, with historical weather data by zip code, accessing weather archives for more than 1,300 stations across United States and Canada, going back to 1960, but more detailed customized access to historical weather info requires a subscription.
You can find out all kinds of information about weather disasters on GenDisasters — the website setting out “Events That Touched Our Ancestors’ Lives.” These include floods, hurricanes, ice and snow, storms and lightning, and tornadoes.
• Try WolframAlpha for weather information too. You can enter, say, “weather January 3, 1975 New York City” as a search term and get an amazingly detailed weather report. The data doesn’t go back all that far — but as far as it goes, it’s dynamite.
For the kinds of weather information we might want to add to our family histories, we might want to look at the official records of the government. By far, the bulk of the National Weather Service and Weather Bureau records are at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. More than 90% of all the records held by NARA at there, with the National Archives branch in Seattle, Washington, coming in a very distant second. These include:
• Meteorological Records of the Surgeon General’s Office 1819-1916
• Records of the Smithsonian Meteorological Project 1848-91
• Records of Signal Corps Meteorological Work 1859-97
• Records of the Weather Bureau 1792-1965
• Records of Field Operations 1735-1979
• Textual Records (General) 1876-1972
• Cartographic Records (General) 1873-1960
• Motion Pictures (General)
• till Pictures (General) 1880-19501
Some additional newer records are in the NOAA collection, record group 370.2
And, don’t forget, the weather has always been a hot topic (you’ll forgive the reference here in the midst of the snows of January) in the pages of our local newspapers.
Now excuse me, please, I have some more electronics to get fully charged… just in case…
SOURCES
- See generally “Records of the Weather Bureau (Record Group 27),” Guide to Federal Records, National Archives (http://www.archives.gov : accessed 26 Jan 2015). ↩
- See ibid., “Records of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Record Group 370).” ↩
You just made me aware of something: I need to self interview about my various bad weather experiences!!! I arrived in the United States, in New York, the day before the blizzard of 1978. We barely had time to pick-up our car at the port of Bayonne and head to Boston to meet my new in-law family, when snow came down inches after inches. Luckily we were all in celabration mood and actually had fun showeling and playing in the snow. I also remember the day when I was in boarding school in France and my Dad couldn’t come to get me for the week-end, because of a terrible ice storm: it was the only time ever in 4 years, I didn’t find him waiting for me at the gate of the school. Special weather does leave an imprint on your life’s memories! Thanks for those memories.
You bet you do need to record those recollections, Annick! Those are the kinds of things our descendants will find fascinating — after all, wouldn’t we want to read that sort of thing about our parents or grandparents or great grandparents???
Don’t forget that diaries and letters will also contain weather information. My Dad’s neighbour, who is descendant of a pioneer family, had carried on a weather-recording tradition of almost 150 years. Between his ancestors’ diaries and the 50-year-old weather station in the farm-yard, there’s a lot of data available for that corner of Ontario, Canada.
That’s a wonderful resource! We have some very minor reports from our grandmother, but sure wish we had more!
Judy, Laura and her family are in NYC for Ferd’s mother’s funeral service. I hope they’re able to get out on Wed.! They took their warmest clothing but, since they live in CA, that isn’t saying much!
I wish we could move some of that snow to our mountains! We’re still in a bad drought situation and haven’t had even a spritz of rain in months!
YIKES!! (a) I’m sorry to hear about Ferd’s mother. My condolences to all. (b) Don’t count on them being able to get out on Wednesday. So many Tuesday flights have been cancelled and the airlines are rebooking like crazy. I am soooooooo glad I am not scheduled to be traveling right now!
What a great way to make good on bad weather! Here’s a little reading to distract you to, found this fascinating!
https://strangepilgrimage.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/and-who-wouldve-thought-it-figures/
I saw that yesterday! I’d sure want to do a whole lot more testing, but wow… if it turned out to be true…
Judy, this blows my mind! I’m not sure I have wrapped my mind around the ramifications and the conflicting emotions with one would have to confront.
Many families discover that there’s been misattributed parentage by way of DNA testing, George, but actually determining that babies were switched in the hospital? Oy!
Bonnie, thanks for the welcome distraction you’ve provided!
Reminders needed: If power is out in cold weather, the whole outdoors is a refrigerator/freezer!! Put food in critter-proof boxes [coolers, perhaps] on the porch, in the cold car on the carport, on the windowsill, and so on. No excuse for food spoiling in the cold weather!
Thanks, Judy, for your blog and all you do!!!
You’re so right about that — except for things that SHOULDN’T be frozen!!
Here’s an interesting site to explore while stuck at home waiting out the storm — the famous Blizzard of 1888 in New York City:
http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/blizzard/bliz_hp.html
That’s a wonderful website! Thanks for posting it.
Judy,
Here’s historic weather for Philadelphia back to 1872:
http://learn.fi.edu/weather/data2/index.html
I wonder if they were as wrong back then as they have been today…snowing all day and (thank God) nothing on the street or sidewalks. But they’re still saying the Great Blizzard is coming tonight. We shall see…good luck where you are (I’m in NJ too but south of you).
Cool website, thanks! I’m still hoping they’re wrong about this one — very little snowfall here so far either!
Yep snow sure does suck. But 2 feet over 3 days is not a lot. It could be so much worse.
It could be a whole lot worse, for sure, and it turns out this one isn’t likely to do what they thought it might anyway. Whew!
Our was worse than could be expected.
You have the apologies of the mid-Atlantic states for not sucking more of the moisture out of this storm.
Snow-pocalypse 2015!!
New England, totally. Getting hammered. Fortunately, it was far less than expected where I am.