Adjustments to Historical Peoria Snowfall Records for February

We have received inquiries in the past regarding discrepancies on our web page for Peoria February snowfall records, vs. what is being used by the National Centers for Environmental Information (the official data keeper for climate records). Specifically, the issue is with the records from February 1900, which are high enough that they impact all-time values for monthly snowfall and 24-hour snowfall.

Background Information:

The Weather Bureau (predecessor of the National Weather Service) began operations on the campus of the present Bradley University in 1905. Prior to this, the weather records for the Peoria area largely came from Dr. Frederick Brendel, who began taking observations in 1855. Due to incompatibilities in observing techniques, Dr. Brendel's records from before 1883 are not being used in our climatological database, but remain available for general climate research.

For unknown reasons, the records from Dr. Brendel for February 1900 are not available. The values that we currently use in our database came from historical record books provided by the Peoria Weather Bureau. As best as we can tell, the data was provided by the observer that took river stage readings for Peoria at the time. However, it became clear in our research that the records for the snow depth by that observer were inaccurately added into the monthly snowfall totals, as some days had no associated precipitation with them but the depth was considered "snowfall." Factoring in that error, it was determined the reported snowfall of 26.5 inches should have been no more than 20.5 inches.

Since the snowstorm of February 27-28, 1900, was considered the snowstorm of record for the Peoria area, we also researched newspaper reports from around that time. We were unable to obtain concrete snowfall totals for Peoria from those reports.

Changes Being Made:

Record Type	Old Value	New Value
Most snowfall in a single month	26.5 inches in February 1900	24.7 inches in January 1979
Most snowfall in February	26.5 inches in 1900	22.9 inches in 2014
Most snow in a single day (any month)	14.5 inches on February 28, 1900	12.2 inches on January 13, 1979
Most snow in a single day in February	14.5 inches on February 28, 1900	11.8 inches on February 1, 2011
Most snow in a single storm	18.0 inches on February 27-28, 1900	15.0 inches on February 1-2, 2011
Record daily snowfall for February 28	14.5 inches on February 28, 1900	3.8 inches on February 28, 1925