Weather Whys; Jan-77

This is weather-wise. Of all the winter months in North American history, January of 1977 may well go into the record books as one of the most severe. In fact, that was the winter which triggered widespread debate about the possibility of a new ice age. That year's unprecedented cold in the east and devastating drought in the west were brought about by an unusually persistent pattern in the atmosphere known as a blocking high. Systems of high pressure over the land push to side California's normal January rainfall and allowed extremely cold air to slide down over the north central states and the eastern seaboard. Ironically, for many locations, the record cold may have produced less snowfall. Not that it's ever really too cold to snow, but colder air does generally hold less moisture than warmer air. And so, under some circumstances, less snow is likely to fall when it's 10 degrees Fahrenheit than when it's 25 degrees.

But typically, locations which are subject to lake effect snowfall saw a lot of the white stuff anyway. For example, Buffalo, New York received nearly 70 inches of snow for an average of more than 2 inches per day. One of the most unexpected events of January 1977 was the record cold experienced by the state of Florida. The citrus crop suffered heavy losses from a hard freeze and residents of Miami saw snowflakes in the air for the first time in recorded history. That may have brought the situation home better than anything else because when it snows in Miami, you know it's a rough winter. We'd like to know what you think of Weatherwise. Please write us at Weatherwise, K-G-O-U radio, the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019-025-0. Weatherwise is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. For Weatherwise, I'm Drew Barla.