"Eye-Popping" Record Temperatures Soar: This Is What Climate Change Looks Like In The United States

[MikeOlsen]

19. From the Right Wing University of Minnesota Dept of weather is not climate

Minnesota's "Year Without a Winter" 1877-1878

The Winter of 1997-1998 will go down in history of one of the warmest ever. However, the Winter of 1877-1878 was definitely the mildest of the post-settlement era.

State Climatologist, Jim Zandlo prepared the following summary of the 1877-1878 Winter in the aftermath of another mild Winter, 1986-1987. Responding to questions resulting from that modern-day temperate Winter, Jim's investigation shows us that nothing is new under the sun!

Farmers near Minneapolis were plowing fields until late December 1878. But in spite of the general warmth, three days with subzero temperatures in early January 1878 froze the Mississippi River in Saint Paul so that it was closed for navigation until the 28th of February. After January 7 only three days through the remainder of the 'cool' season would experience single digit temperatures or lower.

The "Monthly Weather Review" from February 1878 reported prairie fires in Minnesota, Dakota, and Kansas. In that same month active insects in Iowa, grasses sprouting in Dakota, and the ice cover in Duluth harbor broken up by heavy winds were all reported.

The continuing warmth of March 1878 allowed the first boat arrival in Duluth on the 17th. From research done by naturalist Jim Gilbert, Lake Minnetonka ice is known to have gone out at the earliest date on record, March 11, some 35 days earlier than its median ice-out date of April 15.

The winter of 1877-78 while warmest of record at Minneapolis-St. Paul, was not a dry winter. The months of December 1877 through February 1878 saw 3.09 inches of precipitation. For comparison, the full record average for December through February is 2.71 inches.

No simple rule depicts what will follow dry or warm winters; the range of precipitation which can follow in the warm season is large and but has average values which are very nearly the same as all other winters. The perception that 'a drought follows a dry winter' probably reflects the fact that less snow melt would be available to recharge soil moisture in the springs following dry winters.

http://climate.umn.edu/doc/journal/wint77_78.html