1936 North American cold wave

The 1936 North American cold wave ranks among the most intense cold waves in recorded North American meteorological history. The states of the Midwest United States and the Prairie Provinces of Canada were hit the hardest, but only the Southwest and California largely escaped its effects. February 1936 was the coldest month recorded in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, and rivals that of 1899 the coldest February on record for the continent as a whole. Only a few parts of the Great Basin, the Bering Sea coast of Alaska and the Labrador Sea coast of Canada were even close to their long-term means.

The 1930s had previously seen some of the mildest winters in recorded North American climatic history – 1930/1931 in the northern Plains and Western Canada, 1931/1932 in the East, 1932/1933 in New England and 1933/1934 in the Western United States. The northern plains had during the previous eleven years experienced six of their ten warmest Februaries between 1895 and 1976 – those of 1925, 1926, 1927, 1930, 1931 and 1935 – with only February 1929 being severe during this period.

Despite a warm March over most areas east of the Rockies, the extended winter from October to March was the fifth-coldest on record over the conterminous United States and the coldest since 1917.

The cold wave was followed by one of the hottest summers on record, the 1936 North American heat wave.

The 1936 cold wave began in the Plains in November 1935, when temperatures were well below normal in all areas west of the Mississippi, and the northwestern states and North Dakota had one of their coldest Novembers on record. December 1935 saw cold weather spread to the eastern half of the United States, when most places were much below average, and Florida saw its coolest December on record, with a mean temperature of 51.9 °F (11.1 °C). Due to chinook winds, however, Montana and British Columbia were significantly above average and the eastern Plains near normal.

The Plains states started to get a taste of what it would be like until March, as North Dakota saw an average temperature of −6.9 °F (−21.6 °C) and the whole of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains was colder than average. The month began with a mild spell in the eastern states, but from mid-month a huge storm moved across the eastern half of the country to cover that region completely by the nineteenth, in the process producing heavy snow and blocking almost all roads in the Appalachian Mountains. Several highway accidents from the snow were blamed for up to 100 deaths.

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Wikipedia