The Winds of Hell

You know the old adage ' You learn something new every day?'  This Veteran's Day  was truly one of those days and it all had to do with the weather. 

I had awoken to the sound of rain. It was a good steady rain and I knew the plants and trees needed it. As the noise dissipated, I noticed very big white snow clumps replacing the rain which were eventually followed by a constant snowfall with intermittent gusts of wind. It turned from a pretty snowfall to horizontally blowing snow. Very nasty looking. Even Natureman dreaded going out and postponed animal feeding chores as he shared the story of the Armistice Blizzard of 1940 which unbeknownst to me had started out ironically on November 11. This southern raised gal knows virtually nothing about blizzards except the ones from DQ (Dairy Queen).

73 years ago  the weather was unusually warm as the temps reached the mid 60's. The duck hunters were super stoked as an inordinate number of ducks (thousands) were descending upon the Mississippi region. 

What they didn't realize and later learned was the reason why there were so many flocks. A southern low pressure system with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico would pull northern cold arctic air creating a blizzard within 6 hours that would drop temperatures  50 degrees with rain turning to sleet and later snow. Up to 27 " of snow would be dumped upon the region with 50-80mph winds creating  20' snow drifts in Nebraska, So Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan.


The ducks knew as they were trying to escape the impending storm. Unfortunately the hunters didn't have the same warning system. The Chicago Weather Forecast at that time only reported twice a day at 8 am and 8 pm.


The men weren't dressed for winter as they donned light jackets. This would come to haunt them.

Blinding snowy winds caused drowning some attempts to make it to shore while others took refuge in the islands of the backwaters some flipping over their boats to protect themselves. Raging winds with 5 ft waves engulfed them and overnight single digit temps froze others.  The blizzard lasted through the next day. Search parties returned with frozen bodies and survivors who would lose limbs due to frost bite.

Casualties would have been worse if a Winona pilot and one of his students hadn't flown up and down the river dropping supplies to survivors during the storm.

Casualties included:

More than 150 dead and thousands of livestock.
2 trains in Minnesota collided( 2 dead)
3 freighters lost 66 sailors
13 in Illinois
13 in Wisconsin
4 in Michigan

(1.5 million turkeys perished and didn't make it to Thanksgiving tables.)

Iowa which at one time ranked second to Michigan in apple production lost all their orchards and due to the expense and the impending war and time opted to not replant the apple trees. Soy bean and corn was planted to replace their apple crop.

Transportation was immobilized.

"49 Minnesotans perished. A 13-year-old girl from Roscoe, Adella Osendorf, died while searching for her father in the farm yard. She was found frozen to death 150 feet from the barn. A farmer near Princeton, John Beto, went to look for his horses in the pasture. His frozen body was found leaning on a fence 80 rods from his house the next day. Many people died from exertion and exhaustion, from shoveling snow, trying to get through huge drifts, etc. 17 duck hunters froze to death when caught in the storm unprepared. Two trains collided in Watkins, resulting in two deaths. It is believed the crash occurred when one of the trains, failing to find its sidetrack in the storm, remained on the main line, contrary to orders."
personal story

2 frozen bodies

Armistice Blizzard Click on this link to hear and read some amazing personal stories on Minnesota Public Radio.

The Armistice Blizzard is considered one of the two worst storms in the 20th century resulting in the creation of  the '24- hour weather forecast system' and more forecasting stations being built not relying on just the twice a day Chicago forecasts.

Mother Nature sometimes can not be reckoned with but at least now we can be warned...