It was on this date in 1949 that the North Dakota Air National Guard was called upon to drop feed for stranded starving animals in the western part of the state where a storm had dumped 16 inches of snow.
Anybody who has lived in North Dakota for any length of time knows about snowstorms. The state is often accused of being the worst of the lower 48 states for winter weather but, surprisingly, many of our records are surpassed by other states.
In terms of duration, the worst blizzard on record blasted the entire upper plains from March 2-5 in 1966. In Broken Bow, Nebraska, the wind gusted to more than 100 mile per hour, leaving snow drifts 40 feet high. In Bismarck, visibility was zero for 42 consecutive hours, and a new record for single storm snowfall was set at 22.4 inches. Meanwhile, 35 inches fell in Mobridge, South Dakota.
The deadliest blizzard in North Dakota’s modern history hit on March 15, 1941, killing 79 people – 39 in North Dakota, 32 in Minnesota, and 8 in Canada. Winds gusted to 85 miles per hour at Grand Forks, and snow drifts reached 12 feet in north central Minnesota.
Early settlers were particularly vulnerable to winter storms. Immigrant Agatha Jerel wrote of a storm in 1889, saying: “One morning the sun was shining, but it was twenty or twenty-five degrees below zero. Just before noon everything seemed to change … the sun disappeared from out of sight; and before anyone realized what had happened the storm was here. My husband had gone to Wimbledon after a load of coal and was half way home when the storm started. He knew too well an old-fashioned blizzard was approaching. Driving into a farm, he unhitched his team and put them in the barn.”
Being worried about Agatha, he started for home on foot. He grew stiff and cold. Crossing a field, he finally saw a light, which drew him to a house. He pounded on the door, and when it flew open he fell to the floor. When he woke up, he was lying on a bed, in a home ten miles north of his farm.
Others were not so lucky. Several froze to death and many bodies were not found until spring.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm
Source:
The Way It Was: The North Dakota Frontier Experience, Book 1, The Sod-Busters by D. Jerome Tweton and Everett C. Albers, Editors.
