Given the current weather conditions throughout much of the country I thought it would be topical to talk about an event I only just learned about through the letters of Rachel & Co…

The Great Blizzard of 1899

Also known as the “Great Arctic Outbreak” and the “St. Valentine’s Day Blizzard”, the Great Blizzard took place during the coldest February ever recorded and plunged most of the country into record low temperatures (many of these records are still in place today).

Much of New England got two to three feet of snow, Washington DC received 20 inches, New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras in 7 degree weather and there was a snowball fight on the steps of the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee as temperatures plunged below zero for the first (and only) time on record.

When I came across the first mention of the blizzard/arctic outbreak in a letter from Nell (the governess of Rachel’s younger brothers), I thought she (being Nell) was probably exaggerating…

“What shall I talk about first? The weather? I hope you have not been in such a pitiable condition as to have cold air, instead of hot, come up through the registers. Imagine a morning with the thermometer 29½˚ below zero and cold air coming up the register. That was our condition a few days ago and I had school all over the house, wherever I could find a warm spot for my one scholar and myself… On account of the weather I have closed kindergarten for this month and will teach on into June to make up the time.”

I figured there was no way it was actually 29½˚ below zero and maybe Victorian thermometers were just not very accurate after a certain point.

But then I came across Aunt Lilla’s letter from the same week…

“I was never so glad to get home in my life.[she had been attempting to get to New York but had to turn around] Our oven thermometer stood at 24˚ below zero that morning – the lowest ever known in my lifetime. Christine [the housekeeper] had spent the night here and good old Phillips [the groundskeeper] was trying to make the house warm. We were short of gas and burned wood in our furnace all day, thus making it comfortable. Some of the pipes in our upper bathroom froze, so we had to keep a fire in the laundry to thaw them out, and Phillips stayed here Saturday night looking after all the fires. It was an awful old time I do assure you. Milo Hooker’s thermometer marked 32˚ below zero Saturday morning…

We had no storm, only the intense cold, so our mails to Buffalo were not interfered with, but on Monday we began to hear how completely New York and Washington were laid out. Mrs. Northrup [who she was attempted to visit in New York] writes that it was the worst storm – except the blizzard of ’88 – in the 23 years of her life in New York. I was there during the blizzard of ’88, and once is enough.”

The “blizzard of ‘88″ was an even more severe storm (known as the “Great White Hurricane”) that hit New England in March of 1888, but it lacked the low temperatures of the ‘99 Blizzard.

So hey, the weather could always be worse.