Today in Weather History 1/27/1940: A Cold Alabama Weather Story

Our beloved mentor, colleague and weather rock star J.B. Elliott was the master of the weather story. His pen was a clacking teletype machine. He would turn in his tape punch for a computer and work with us after a 32 year career at the National Weather Service. For another 25 years, he would regale our audience with his weather wisdom and down home stories about his beloved dog, Miss Molly. Before he left the NWS, he wrote one of his trademark weather statements. He would share that statement with the AlabamaWX audience on January 27, 2009.

I have a ton of material in my filing cabinet from my 32-year career in the U.S. Weather Bureau (later National Weather Service) all at the Birmingham office. Thought you might enjoy (and get cooled off!) by this special statement that I wrote for the NWS/Alabama Weather Wire on January 27, 1989.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM
545 AM CST FRI JAN 27 1989

A COLD WEATHER STORY IN A WARM JANUARY

Alabama is experiencing a very warm January, in some areas the warmest January in the last 14 years. The bitter cold seems to be elsewhere. (Yesterday, it was 75 below zero at Cold Foot, a small town in Northern Alaska!)

So, it is time for a cold weather story about Alabama…

Forty nine years ago this morning, January 27, 1940…Alabama was locked in a severe cold wave (I love the term, “Cold Wave” but it is no longer in use. The north half of the state was under a heavy blanket of snow.

The snow came on the 23rd and 24th. There was more than a foot in parts of North Alabama. One inch fell as far south as Montgomery.

Bitter, bitter cold followed the snow.

At Birmingham Airport, the temperature dropped to 10 below zero on the morning of January 26 and 8 below on the 27th. The city was covered with 7 inches of snow. There was ice skating on the Black Warrior River at Birmingport with ice on the river four inches thick. The ice was seven inches thick on creeks running into the river!

The Cullman area was very hard hit by the unusually severe winter storm. Over a 13-inch blanket of snow the Cullman temperature plunged to a bitter 16 below zero.

Anniston was buried under an 11-inch blanket of snow.

Some examples of snow depths and low temperatures during that bitter January, 1940 winter storm:

Decatur…3 below zero, 10 inches of snow
Anniston…3 below zero, 11 inches of snow
Cullman…16 below zero, 13 inches of snow
Talladega…5 below zero, 8 inches of snow
Tuscaloosa…2 below zero, 5 inches of snow
Greensboro…2 above zero, 3 inches of snow
Montgomery…10 above zero, 1 inch of snow

All of this makes the 76 degree high in Montgomery and Mobile yesterday seem even nicer. (That would have been for January 26, 1989.)

Category: Met 101/Weather History