Weather History

This Day In Weather History

In 1780, a British Army thermometer dropped to 16 below zero in New York City. With the harbor frozen for five weeks, heavy cannons had to be dragged across the ice to Staten Island. This was the coldest month ever recorded in the Northeast. It became known as "The Hard Winter". Two cataclysmic volcanic eruptions that occurred in the Kuril Islands in 1778 and on the Japanese Island of Kyushu on November 8, 1779 played major roles in the brutally cold winter of 1779-1780.

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In 1988, Northeast Colorado experienced its most severe windstorm in many years. Boulder had measured a 92 mph gust when the anemometer blew away. In the mountains, Mines Peak was whip-lashed by 120 MPH GUSTS.

In 1971, the coldest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. occurred when Prospect Creek, Alaska, located 180 miles north of Fairbanks, tumbled into a thermal abyss to 80 below zero.

This Day in Weather History Archive