Weather History Archive

On This Day In

                   Weather History

September 20th

Local and Regional Events:

September 20, 1970:

During the late afternoon, golfball hail fell in and around Redfield with a tornado reported just north of Doland. No damage was reported with the hail or the tornado.

September 20, 1972:

About 430 pm, in southeast South Dakota, a tornado caused an estimated $95,000 damage to property and 50,000 damage to crops in Utica and nearby rural areas. Buildings were damaged; trees and power lines were downed.

Local Climate Information:

Click HERE for daily climate information for Aberdeen, Mobridge, Pierre, Sisseton, and Watertown.

Click HERE for daily climate information for Sioux Falls, Huron, Mitchell, and Sioux City.

U.S.A and Global Events for September 20th:

1909: A large and deadly Category 3 hurricane made landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana during the late evening hours. The states of Louisiana and Mississippi showed catastrophic damage resulting in 371 deaths and $265 million in damage (2010 USD).

Above is the surface weather analysis of the 1909 Grand Isle Hurricane (Hurricane Eight) over the southern United States of September 21st.

The image above is the aftermath of the September 1909 hurricane in the Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi on the front page of Daily Picayune.

1961: On September 10th, the Television Infrared Observation Satellite observed an area of thunderstorms west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, suggesting a possible tropical cyclone. This storm is the first large tropical cyclone to be discovered on satellite imagery and would eventually become Hurricane Esther. On September 20th, Hurricane Esther, a Category 4 storm off of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina began to slow down as it moved north-northeast well off the Jersey shore. The storm continued to weaken as it made a five-day loop south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, then moved to Cape Cod and into Maine on the 26th.

Above is Tropical Cyclone Esther on September 10, 1961, two days before its existence was confirmed by aircraft reconnaissance. The image is courtesy of the Monthly Weather Review, published in 1961.

The background image is from NASA and the tracking data from the National Hurricane Center.

2002: A glacial avalanche buries the village of Karmadon in Russia, killing more than 100 people. Click HERE for more information from NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Click HERE for more This Day in Weather History from the Southeast Regional Climate Center.