The Incredible Cold Front of November 11-12 1911

[knocker]

Rather an apt anniversary

 

 

On November 11-12, 1911 a cold front barged across the central and eastern United States with such force that it is still remembered over a century later.  In association with this front some cities set both a record high and a record low in the same day.  Temperature plunges that have never been recorded before or since shocked the people who were in the cold blast's path.  Huge thunderstorms erupted ahead of the front causing widespread wind damage as well as large hail and terrible tornadoes up to F4 in strength.  Just hours after the thunderstorms hit, some locations were accosted with blizzard conditions.

 

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=nov_11_1911_cold_front

[Lettucing Gutted]

This chart shows an unusual upper level setup for this period.  http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?day=12&month=11&year=1911&hour=0&map=0&mode=0  It seems that despite a +ve NAO and +ve AO combo (albeit weak) the Jetstream around most of the Northern Hemisphere was southerly tracking (albeit very unstable) at this time with an unusually early extensive pool of very cold arctic air extending from the United States back over the North Pole and back down into Siberia combined with the weak blocking features over High Latitude North Atlantic and Alaska.  This suggests to me that a very unstable southerly tracking Jetstream had caused the rapid and very sharp temperature swings.  There is also an unusually extensive cold pool in the Mid Latitude North Atlantic with only a Mid Atlantic Low and weak Euro Ridge buffering cold zonality from the UK.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Craig Evans

[johnholmes]

thank you for those two posts-all one can say is  wow!

30C drop in 8-10 hours, 5-8C drop for here would be notable on a cold front.

[Gael_Force]

This chart shows an unusual upper level setup for this period.  http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?day=12&month=11&year=1911&hour=0&map=0&mode=0  It seems that despite a +ve NAO and +ve AO combo (albeit weak) the Jetstream around most of the Northern Hemisphere was southerly tracking (albeit very unstable) at this time with an unusually early extensive pool of very cold arctic air extending from the United States back over the North Pole and back down into Siberia combined with the weak blocking features over High Latitude North Atlantic and Alaska.  This suggests to me that a very unstable southerly tracking Jetstream had caused the rapid and very sharp temperature swings.  There is also an unusually extensive cold pool in the Mid Latitude North Atlantic with only a Mid Atlantic Low and weak Euro Ridge buffering cold zonality from the UK.

 

It looks very similar in the placement of the main ridge/trough features as we see in the charts today.