Hoosier Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 We are coming up on 80 years since one of the worst heat waves that the region has seen. In this thread I will post maps of the daily high temperatures at major reporting sites and surface/upper air reanalysis for the period from the 4th through the 17th, which was a particularly hot stretch. I assume everybody knows the general background about what made the 1930s such a brutal time for heat. Drought and poor farming practices decimated the agricultural areas and they basically became desert like, which led to extreme heat episodes from the Plains eastward. Here's July 4, 1936 high temperatures and surface/upper air. A warm front stretching northwest to southeast across the area resulted in a sharp gradient in temperatures with extreme heat confined to the southern/western areas...for now. Oh how that will change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 3, 2016 Author Share Posted July 3, 2016 July 5, 1936...heat slowly builds. The big change was at places like Dubuque and La Crosse, which had highs in the 80s on the previous day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 3, 2016 Author Share Posted July 3, 2016 July 6, 1936...heat creeping eastward as Rockford now surpasses 100F. A couple things may be noticeable by now. One is that Lansing, MI tends to run cooler and Flint, MI tends to run hotter than surrounding areas. Another is that Chicago and Milwaukee are largely escaping the brutal heat to this point. I'm not sure where the official observation site was located for Milwaukee back in those days but in the case of Chicago, it was located much closer to the lake than it is now. Pressure gradient seems to have been weak enough to allow for some lake cooling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chambana Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 Wow thank you so much for this Hoosier, awesome thread. The only summer that even closely resembles anything like this is of course 2012. Summers of 34-36 were insanely warm, I think our trio of 10-12 is as close of a match as any. My grandmother is 93, and Alzheimer's terribly, would have been nice to hear stories of those summers (if she would have even remembered) prior to Alzheimer's of course. I do remember back in 2012, I know quite a few farmers and towards effingham, by the 3rd week of July they had mowed down all corn and claimed 100% loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chambana Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 You can really see the heat manifest and feed off the dry conditions that were present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 3, 2016 Author Share Posted July 3, 2016 Wow thank you so much for this Hoosier, awesome thread. The only summer that even closely resembles anything like this is of course 2012. Summers of 34-36 were insanely warm, I think our trio of 10-12 is as close of a match as any. My grandmother is 93, and Alzheimer's terribly, would have been nice to hear stories of those summers (if she would have even remembered) prior to Alzheimer's of course. I do remember back in 2012, I know quite a few farmers and towards effingham, by the 3rd week of July they had mowed down all corn and claimed 100% loss. Thanks. It's interesting to look at the high/low anomalies for July 1936. The high temps were much more above average than the lows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 July 7, 1936...100 degree heat reaches the far northern tier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daddylonglegs Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Weren't there some nights that ended up being pretty chilly? I have the data somewhere from this year for La Crosse..i'll have to dig through it... i can't imagine the dew points were super high? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclone77 Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Cool thread. No pun intended lol. I'm wondering how the readings from this period would have been if they'd have been sampled by today's ASOS. I'm guessing the thermometer shelters back in the 30s were of the passive variety, and not aspirated like today's equipment. Probably added 2-3 degrees compared to what we'd see today. Obviously still a very hot period in any case of course. The QC hit 111 later this month, which was the all-time record. I would guess today's ASOS at MLI would be more like 107-109, but who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geos Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Looks like an onshore flow kept it "cool" for the first 2 days in Chicago and Milwaukee. You never really see the heat domes make it much further east then this longitude - at least nothing that stays very long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beavis1729 Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Good stuff Hoosier. Would be interesting to see the daily highs at Des Moines for that month. Per the map you posted above, the high temps for Des Moines were 14+ degrees above normal. Their normal high for July is around 86...which means their average high during July 1936 was around 100. Crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 Weren't there some nights that ended up being pretty chilly? I have the data somewhere from this year for La Crosse..i'll have to dig through it... i can't imagine the dew points were super high? There were some cool nights, but not really during that stretch. Lows were mainly in the 70s at La Crosse and elsewhere, with even some 80s in some areas. Of course that is still a good 25-30+ degree diurnal range when your highs are well into the 100s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 Good stuff Hoosier. Would be interesting to see the daily highs at Des Moines for that month. Per the map you posted above, the high temps for Des Moines were 14+ degrees above normal. Their normal high for July is around 86...which means their average high during July 1936 was around 100. Crazy. Des Moines average high that month was 99.1F, with 17 days at or above 100F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beavis1729 Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Des Moines average high that month was 99.1F, with 17 days at or above 100F. Thanks - it's really unfathomable that such an event could occur again today. If we get another drought year like 1988, who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 Thanks - it's really unfathomable that such an event could occur again today. If we get another drought year like 1988, who knows. Big drought and you'd also need a certain stagnancy to the pattern. Odds of that repeating in any given year aren't good but if you wait long enough, who knows. The drought resistant crops nowadays make it more difficult to wipe them out on a large scale, but go long enough without rain and it can happen. I checked Phoenix temperatures for July 1936 and some of their highs were comparable to areas of the Midwest. That is some impressive stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormtrackertf Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 July 7, 1936...100 degree heat reaches the far northern tier 1936070712.gif 1936070800.gif 7th.png I don't think I'll ever see a 103 degree day at Marquette in my lifetime. That is just crazy. I'm gonna assume that was the hottest day on record there. Edit: just looked it up, and going back to 1981, there has not been another 100 degree day. The closest was 99 during the extreme heat wave of 1988. Prior to that I would have to do some serious digging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 I don't think I'll ever see a 103 degree day at Marquette in my lifetime. That is just crazy. I'm gonna assume that was the hottest day on record there. The record is 108 on July 15, 1901. That's really hard to fathom. Looks like the last 100 degree temp in Marquette was all the way back in July 1977. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 July 8, 1936 Site I was using for the reanalysis images is not working for some reason. Italicized/underlined numbers represent all-time record highs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 July 9, 1936 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormtrackertf Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 July 9, 1936 9th.png What was going on at Lansing that day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 An incredible heatwave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwohweather Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 I'll have to find it but my grandmother is a curator at a local museum and has the microfilms of local newspapers on this heatwave. I always wonder what it'd be like on this forum today to track that incredible heat and major dust storms coming out of the Plains. Truly one of the most fascinating historical events in our nations history Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 9, 2016 Author Share Posted July 9, 2016 What was going on at Lansing that day? Not sure. In general, Lansing ran cool and Flint ran warm during that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morris Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Amazing stuff! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
on_wx Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Looked at local info. We hit 99F five times during July 1936 on the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 13th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 10, 2016 Author Share Posted July 10, 2016 July 10, 1936 Italicized/underlined numbers represent all-time record highs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toronto4 Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Toronto hit 105 for three consecutive days in July 1936 (8 to 10th). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxnut Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 The July 1936 heat wave has to be one of the most anomalous weather events in North American history. In particular, July 6 1936 in North Dakota saw the most freakish heat you could imagine for a state bordering Canada.. widespread 113-120F temperatures with an extreme maximum of 121F in Steele, ND. That's just 1F off the all time high for Phoenix! (122F) Steele also recorded a high of 117F during that 1936 heat wave. Those were the only two times that Steele has ever seen a temperature greater than 110F. Truly an epic, off the scale heat wave that I often wonder will ever be duplicated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
on_wx Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 Toronto hit 105 for three consecutive days in July 1936 (8 to 10th). Interesting! I do not believe an official temp of 100F has been recorded in KW yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted July 12, 2016 Author Share Posted July 12, 2016 July 11, 1936 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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