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Neat Stuff on the Intertubes: "A Remarkable Storm"
Posted Fri, March 20, 2009 - 9:20 PM
minnesota, coolstuff
What's the heaviest rainstorm you've ever seen? For me, I'd have to say one summer night at Wild River State Park (more on that in a later post.) But chances are, no matter where it might be, it probably doesn't hold a candle to this story:
"The 18th of July 1867 will long be remembered by those persons who were, at the time in the region comprising the counties of Pope, Douglas, and the western part of Stearns..."
It was with these remarks that [George B.] Wright opened a paper entitled "Notes of a Remarkable Storm" delivered on 8 March 1876 before the Minnesota Academy of Natural Science. In this paper, Wright, who was part of a survey party operating at the time in an area about 15 miles southwest of Glenwood in Pope County, states that he experienced rainfall that was perhaps "without parallel in temperate climates".
The surveyor's camp was on "high ground under tall cottonwood trees" about four miles west of the Chippewa River and about five miles east of the Pomme de Terre River, both normally meandering western Minnesota streams. The storm commenced on 17 July 1867 "with some thunder and lightning and a little wind". Wright notes that it seemed to form in the vicinity of the camp and that he "had no clear recollection of its commencement except that the sky clouded up and it began to rain".
"The rainfall was moderate as first, but continued to increase during the night. It was not until morning that we became aware of the enormous amount of rain that was falling. The storm lasted about 30 hours and further north and east it is reported to have continued for 36 hours. Early in the day, in the first lulls of the storm, we saw the Chippewa valley before us as one broad sheet of water as far as the eye could reach..."
"The Chippewa spread from bluff to bluff, nowhere less than 50 to 60 rods [825-990 feet] and in places three or four miles and did not get fully into its natural channel until October..."
"Four weeks afterward we crossed the Chippewa at our old ford... The water at that point - a narrow place - was 40 rods wide [660 feet], two to six feet deep on the flood plain and perhaps 15 to 20 feet deep in the channel..."
"...People in Sauk Center, Osakis, and vicinity, claim with great unanimity that it [rainfall amounts] exceeded 30 and probably reached 36 inches."
"I have heard it stated by several of them, reliable persons I believe, that empty barrels, standing where they could catch no drip or anything but the average rainfall, filled and ran over before the storm ended. One very intelligent farmer at Westport, Pope county, told me that a large kerosene cask, empty, standing on the prairie some rods from any building, filled from two-thirds to three-fourths full. The heaviest part of the storm was... probably further north and east than Westport, and I think it probable that the rainfall in some places reached 30 inches in as many hours, or as much as the average [annual] deposit of rain and snow in the same region of the country, something which I believe entirely unparalleled in the records of this state or of this latitude anywhere..."
OK, let's get that straight. He says that a normal prairie stream, maybe a couple dozen feet across, grew to four miles wide after this storm.
He says that three feet of rain fell, confirmed by multiple measurements. This is more than falls during most hurricanes.
And he says that the aftereffects of the storm were unprecedented as well.
"... in twenty years of camping experience, I think I saw and felt ten times more of mosquitos between July 25th and October 1st 1867 than in all the balance of the time together. The sun shone out of a coppery sky and the hot heavy vapor in the air could be seen and felt everywhere and all the time. Our provisions had not been injured by the storm... but sugar melted and ran out of the barrels under the influence of that steam bath, and clothing mildewed and rotted in spite of all the air and sunshine that we could give it. It was just such a summer as one might find in Central America or along the Orinoco river. Waters of the lakes... which before the storm were at a very low mark... rose to full bank. The rise varied from two to three to ten or twelve feet in the course of two to three days time".
I don't know about you, but I'd call this report awesome, in all senses of the word that are familiar to me.
(Excerpted from the September 1994 newsletter of the American Meteorological Society, Twin Cities Chapter. Source.)