Weather History - Nov. 11

1911 - The central U.S. experienced perhaps its most dramatic cold wave of record. During the early morning temperatures across the Central Plains ranged from 68 degrees at Kansas City to 4 above North Platte NE. In Kansas City, the temperature warmed to a record 76 degrees by late morning before the arctic front moved in from the northwest. Skies become overcast, winds shifted to the northwest, and the mercury began to plummet. By early afternoon it was cold enough to snow, and by midnight the temperature had dipped to a record cold reading of 11 degrees above zero. Oklahoma City also established a record high of 83 degrees and record low of 17 degrees that same day. In southeastern Kansas, the temperature at Independence plunged from 83 degrees to 33 degrees in just one hour. The arctic cold front produced severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the Mississippi Valley, a blizzard in the Ohio Valley, and a dust storm in Oklahoma.

1940 - An Armistice Day storm raged across the Great Lakes Region and the Upper Midwest. A blizzard left 49 dead in Minnesota, and gales on Lake Michigan caused ship wrecks resulting in another 59 deaths. Up to seventeen inches of snow fell in Iowa, and at Duluth MN the barometric pressure reached 28.66 inches. The blizzard claimed a total of 154 lives, and killed thousands of cattle in Iowa. Whole towns were isolated by huge snowdrifts.