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Walker County
Alabama
Genealogy and History
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ALABAMA HISTORIC WEATHER TIMELINE - 1711 - 1900
HOME
Taken from: HISTORY OF ALABAMA ADAPTED
TO THE USE OF SCHOOLS by L. D. Miller. Published by Roberts & Sons,
Birmingham, Ala. 1901.
Submitted by Veneta
McKinney.
COLD WINTERS AND HOT SUMMERS, FLOODS AND
DROUGHTS.
A. D. 1711 — Mobile visited by a destructive storm and
flood, which caused the settlers to remove to present site of the city.
1740 and 1746 — Destructive storms and floods, which destroyed the
rice crop near Mobile.
1748 — The Mississippi at New Orleans was
frozen thirty to forty feet from its banks.
1768 — Another cold
winter.
1772 — A cold winter followed by an extremely hot summer.
August 31st to September 3d. a terrible storm, which blew the water from
the bay over the city of Mobile. Vessels were stranded in the center of
the town.
1779-80 — Cold all over the South. No thaw from November
15th to middle of February, and constant succession of snows. Domestic
fowls and wild turkeys were frozen. Deer sought shelter around the cabins
of the settlers.
1783 — Winter clothing worn in July and August.
White frosts in September.
1793, 1794, 1796, and 1799 were cold
winters.
1807 — February 7th first "Cold Friday." Afterwards
turned warmer and then suddenly cold again, with high wind from the North.
On February 16th the frozen sap in the trees caused the bark to explode.
1816 — This is known as the year without a summer. On 16th of
April spray blown from the waves would freeze in the rigging of vessels at
Mobile. June 8th there was a killing frost south to latitude 33 degrees,
and frost every month of the year north of latitude 34 degrees. Corn meal
sold at $5.00 a bushel in Tuscumbia the following winter and spring.
1817 — A year of constant rains.
1819 — August 25th to
28th a gale from the gulf flooded Mobile and stranded a large brig on
Dauphin street.
1823 — February 16th the thermometer down to 5
degrees at Mobile, the lowest on record up to that time.
1825 —
Dry summer. Year without a winter. The cotton crop, which seemed almost
ruined by the drought, was open early in the fall. Showers in September
caused a second growth and fruitage,
which matured a fine crop during
the winter. This entailed great loss on speculators, who had bought up the
first crop in the fall and were holding it for higher prices.
1827— A killing frost 27th of May.
1829 — A year of
continuous rains and poor crops.
1832 — Year of heavy rains and
extraordinary floods. Cold winter. The thermometer dropped to 9 degrees
below zero at Huntsville.
1833 — Great floods. Rivers higher than
ever before. The great meteoric display occurred on the night of November
13th. Most people thought the world was coming to an end, and they
confessed their sins and prayed as never before.
1834-35 —
Extremely cold winter. February 6th and 7th. 1835, have since been known
as the "Cold Friday and Saturday." The writer has been told by early
settlers of Calhoun county that the creeks, where not very swift, were
frozen over so as to bear the weight of a horse. They say also that the
frozen sap in trees caused the bark to explode with a noise like the
firing of pistols in the forests.
1839 and 1840 — Extremely dry.
Alabama river got too low for navigation, but good crops were made in this
State.
1844 and 1845 — Both very dry, but fair crops were produced
in Alabama. The last named — 1845 — is known as the dry year in the States
of the South farther east. Crops in South Carolina and Georgia were a
complete failure.
1846 — Cotton caterpillars first made their
appearance north of the black belt. Damage from them and from boll worms
was fearful this year in Middle and South Alabama.
1847 — A year
of rains and floods. Crops much below the average.
1849 —
Unusually mild up to the middle of April and all vegetation well advanced.
Wheat in some sections was ripening and corn waist high. Cotton up with
from four to six leaves, and the leaves
of the forest about grown. On
the 16th of April there was a killing frost, and ice formed on still
water. Corn and cotton had to be replanted. Small grain crops were killed.
In the States east there was a heavy snow, being four inches deep in
Charleston, S. C.
1851 — High waters in April. Summer hot and dry.
1852 — Thermometer down to 8 degrees at Mobile on January 20th.
Much rain in July and August, causing cotton insects. Equinoctial gale
flooded Mobile.
1853 — Heavy rains and floods. Cotton crop greatly
reduced thereby. Rainfall at Mt. Vernon 106.57 inches.
1855-56 —
Cold winter. Standing water in ponds near Mobile at one time was frozen
hard enough to skate upon.
1857 — Spring backward. On April 13th a
heavy snow storm. Vegetation not being advanced was not injured as in
1849, except wheat, in Middle Alabama, which was killed.
1858 and
1859 — Heavy spring Hoods, but good weather later made fine crops.
1860 — Summer very hot.
1865 and 1867 — High waters in the
spring.
1868 and 1871 — Great damage from cotton caterpillars.
1874-75 — Winter mild. No frost of consequence until December 8th.
1876 — Heavy snow storm March 19th, especially in West Alabama.
December 30th heavy snow storm, which culminated in extremely cold weather
during first week in January, 1877. (See next below.)
1877 —
Thermometer fell to zero on the 1st of January at Columbus, Miss., where
the Bigbee was frozen over. In Calhoun county the mercury fell to 10
degrees below zero. All mill ponds not immediately below large springs
were frozen hard enough to skate upon.
1881 — Noted for being the
hottest summer recorded in this State. Temperature during June, July and
August at many places 3 degrees higher than the average for thirty years.
Heavy rains in March caused the rivers to be higher than in 1865. This was
followed by a protracted drought, but average crops were made. Eggs are
said to have been hatched by the temperature of the atmosphere ten days
after the hens abandoned their nests during the hottest spells in July and
August. The writer's thermometer — in Calhoun county — reached 102 degrees
in the shade one time in July, and 101 degrees once in August — the only
times it has gone so high in twenty-eight years, the nearest approach
being 98 degrees in July, 1897.
1883 — Long drought during the
summer and fall. Many wells dried up. More sickness from malaria than
ordinary.
1884 — Noted as the year of freshets, tornadoes, wet
summer, dry fall, and poor crops. In parts of Northeast Alabama the
streams in April were higher than ever before. Probably a total of less
than
two dozen people were killed by the eighteen tornadoes in this
State during the spring of 1884, the greatest fatalities from storms in
the history of the State. Two or three of these tornadoes passed into
Georgia. and according to newspaper reports, each of them wrought
ten-fold greater destruction of life and property in that State than in
Alabama. Notwithstanding the April flood, and the wet weather
of June,
when only two days plowing was done in Calhoun county during said month,
the total rainfall of the year was less than usual. Following winter cold.
1885 — This year noted for number of tornadoes next to 1884.
1886 — Very cold in January. Thermometer down to 8 degrees below
zero in Northern Alabama on the 8th of January. From the 3d to 5th of
December, 1886, the heaviest snow storm recorded in
this State —
twelve inches deep in South Alabama to twenty inches deep in portions of
North Alabama. Rivers in the spring of 1886 higher and more destructive
than for many years past.
1889-90— Mild winter.
1891 —
January, February and March wet. April and May dry. Good rains July and
August. Crops good. Cotton crop first reached 9,000,000 bales. Alabama's
crop amounted to 1,000,000 bales for the first time — only a few thousand
ahead of that of 1860, but about double any after the war up to 1875 of
this State.
1892 — Rained all through the month of August. Corn
crop good. Cotton crop short.
1893 — Much rain in the spring.
Crops short.
1894 — Very miid and vegetation was more advanced
than ever before up to the 25th of March. Leaves of the forest half grown
in Northern Alabama. On the 25th it turned cold suddenly and there
was
a killing frost on the 26th. Corn that was up and all garden vegetables
were killed, also such trees as white mulberry, mimosa, etc. Wheat and
oats were thought to be killed but recovered.
1895 — First week in
January and about the middle of February considerable snow and extremely
cold. For a few hours during each of these two spells the mercury stood
below zero throughout a large
part of the State. All the blue birds,
which were very numerous, were killed by the February freeze. The snow
extended farther south in Florida than ever before, and the orange trees
were killed in the main orange belt of that State, Few blue birds have
reappeared in Calhoun county up to this time,
1896 and 1897 — Each
hot and dry during the summer and fall, especially the latter year. Many
wells and springs dried vp.
1898 — May and June very hot. Fall
very wet, so that cotton picking was much delayed, and the cotton badly
stained. Much fine bottom corn was destroyed in the fall by overflow of
the creeks.
1899 — Very cold for a week previous to the 11th of
February ,when a heavy snow storm began and continued until 9 a. m. the
next day, when the snow was eight inches in Calhoun county. The next
morning, February 13th, 1899, the thermometer dropped to zero everywhere
in this State for the first time on record. At Mobile it was 1 degree,
Montgomery 5 degrees, Calhoun county 7 degrees
to 10 degrees, and at
Valley Head, DeKalb county, 17 degrees. Thus we see it ranged from one
degree below zero at Mobile to 17 degrees below at Valley Head. For the
second time in twenty-eight years the peach blooms were killed in the bud,
so that there were no peach blooms in the spring throughout a large part
of this State. Strangely to the writer, the mill ponds were not frozen so
hard as twice before during his observations since 1873, although the snow
in the roads furnished good sledding for nearly a week. Several tornadoes
in this State during March, 1899. Owing to wet weather but little plowing
was done before April and much good land lay out.
1900 — Like the
year previous preparation of land for planting greatly delayed by wet
weather. Continuous rains in June ruined low bottom corn, greatly injured
other crops by preventing work in
the fields, and almost destroyed
early peaches just as they began to ripen.
The following years
produced unusually good crops: 1823, 1825, 1835, 1837, 1839, 1840, 1842,
1844, 1855, 1858, 1859, 1870, 1872, 1875. 1878, 1879, 1885, 1886, 1889,
1891, 1892, corn; 1894, 1897, cotton.
The following years produced
crops below the average: 1816, 1817, 1827, 1838, 1843, 1846, 1847, 1849,
1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1857, 1867, 1868, 1871, 1876, 1884, 1890,
1893, 1899, 1900.
None of the foregoing crops were complete
failures all around — such as are often experienced by the farmers of
Texas and the Northwest, and occasionally by the farmers in the States to
the East, on
account of drought. With the exception of 1816 — which
had summer and of which we know very little as only a small part of the
State was settled up — there is not a year when two-thirds of the
cultivated land devoted to food crops would have failed to produce an
abundance for man and beast. Many of our people fear drought — probably on
account of disasters from droughts in other States — but a study of the
weather notes here given shows that the wet years in Alabama produee the
short crops.
TORNADOES IN ALABAMA.
The term cyclone is
often improperly used for tornado. The latter is a furious and terrible
storm of wind, or of wind and electricity combined, which revolves with
lightning rapidity, and with a deafening roar sweeps for itself a
straight, narrow swath and demolishes everything in its course. The path
of a tornado is usually only a few hundred feet wide, while a cyclone is a
great storm with a breadth of many miles, and with a reach that is
continental in extent. Lieutenant Finley, of the United States signal
service, has made a record of 112 tornadoes which occurred in Alabama
during the sixty-seven years from 1822 to 1890. The year of greatest
frequency was 1884, with nineteen tornadoes. Sixty-six of the 112 occurred
during the three months of February, March and April — fourteen in
February, twenty-eight in March, and twenty-four in April. The months
without tornadoes are July, August, September and October, although some
of the most destructive cyclones at Mobile have occurred during August and
September. Hours of greatest frequency of tornadoes, 6 to 8 p. m.
Prevailing direction of movement, northeast. Width, 100 to 3,900 feet. It
will doubtless surprise many readers, as it did the writer, to learn that
seventy-three of the 112 tornadoes occurred in the twenty-seven counties
of the mineral belt, which is probably more hilly and mountainous than any
of the three other great belts of the State. There were fourteen tornadoes
in the cereal belt, seventeen in the cotton belt, and only eight in the
great timber belt of South Alabama. All the counties of the timber belt
lying east of the Alabama and Mobile rivers, except Pike and Henry, have
escaped tornadoes so far as reported, as have the contiguous counties of
Lowndes and Wilcox, in the cotton belt. The tornadoes most destructive of
life and property occurred as follows: In Colbert
county, 6 p.m.. November 22d, 1874.
Same date in Shelby county at midnight. Talladega and Calhoun counties,
February 19th, 1884. Jeflferson and Cherokee, March 15th, 1884. (The
writer has been unable to get report of tornadoes from 1891 to 1896.) On
the 18th of March, 1899, there were destructive tornadoes in Cleburne.
Shelbv. Jefferson, Montgomery, Dallas and Walker. The counties in which
the greatest number of tornadoes have occurred so far as reported are as
follows. Cleburne 8, Cherokee 8, Tuscaloosa 7, Calhoun 6, Blount
6,
Jefferson 6, Pickens 5, Lee 5, Talladega 4, Chilton 4, Etowah 3. Most of
these counties are noted for their numerous beds of iron ore — and when we
consider that no tornado is reported for a large section of South Alabama,
where no iron ore is found, some interesting questions arise as to the
part played by electricity in a tornado, and whether vast deposits of iron
ore is one of the agencies, which produce a tornado.
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