January 22, 1936: A “Raging Blizzard, the Worst in Years”
This is the Canadian Forecast Model. It shows (upper left) a river of arctic high pressure running from the Arctic Ocean through northwest Canada into the U.S.
Relatively mild winters were the rule in Upper Michigan from the 1920s into the early ’30s, so residents were likely unprepared for the “most severe and prolonged cold wave of many winters” that blew in during late January 1936. The arctic blast was preceded by “a raging blizzard” on January 22 and 23, judged “the worst in years.” The storm brought travel to a virtual halt, as street crews in Iron Mountain, Escanaba, Menominee and the Sault were called off the roads. Strong winds blew the new snow into huge drifts, making travel nearly impossible. The snow finally let up, but the wind continued, transporting bitter arctic air which had been banked up to the northwest. While the blizzard raged in the U. P., Duluth reached 30 degrees below zero along with a brutal northwesterly wind that gusted to 40 miles an hour. An incredible 55 below zero was measured at a bridge linking the U. S. and Canada at International Falls.
The cold wave of 1936 will be remembered for its harsh combination of wind and cold that persisted for nearly a month over a wide area of the Midwest and Great Lakes. Marquette experienced subzero cold on 16 out of the first 19 days of February 1936. Bitter northwesterly winds brought Munising its heaviest lake-effect snow in years, while numbing cold froze most of the city’s fire hydrants and water pipes. On one day in early February, the lakeside community plummeted to 24 degrees below zero with a thermometer on the east side of town registering 40 below. By the third week of February, Escanaba recorded twenty consecutive days with temperatures below zero, tying a record set during the historic cold blast thirty-seven years earlier. In Marquette, the month ended nearly 10 degrees below the long-term mean.
At the same time U.P. residents were shivering after mid-February, Weather Bureau forecasters noticed pressures lowering in northwestern Canada, a sign the cold was about to break. True to the Bureau’s forecast, Marquette popped above freezing for the first time in well over a month on February 23.
Just the opposite is occurring over northwestern North America 77 years later. Pressures continue high in the Yukon up north into the Arctic Ocean (Image above); a sign that any warm up that develops over the weekend into early next week will likely be brief.
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