The Legend of the Blue Norther

This is a story about huge temperature drops across the vast Great Plains of the USA. It is the Legend of the Blue Norther. You never see or hear that term in official forecasts because it has never been used. Instead it is more folklore. But I guarantee that you could talk to a rancher in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle, and for that matter, almost anywhere in Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, he would know right away what a Blue Norther is. It is a huge and sudden plunge in temperature. In the early days, with no weather warnings, untold numbers of people perished and literally thousands of livestock froze to death. Children walking home from early day schools were frozen.

And, why was it called a Blue Norther? No one can be sure. Some oldtimers say it is a vicious cold front that sweeps across the Panhandle under a blue-black sky. Others say it is named for the bright blue sky after the front has passed. Still another version is that it is because the sudden severe change will make a person turn blue from the cold. I tend to believe the latter.

One example of the Blue Norther was the giant cold wave of November 11, 1911. In Kansas City, the temperature had reached 76 by late morning. At midnight, it was 11—a drop of 65 degrees in 14 hours! Springfield dropped from 80 to 13, a plunge of 67 degrees in 10 hours. Oklahoma City had the distinction of having a record high of 83, only to establish arecord low on the same day as it dropped to 17 by midnight.

Here in Alabama, we have had some historic drops in temperature also but they have never been called a Blue Norther. On Thanksgiving Day, 1950, football fans were watching the annual Crippled Children’s Championship Football Game at Legion Field in shirt sleeves since it was 70 degrees. The Weather Bureau had already issued Cold Wave Warnings for the area. Most people did not believe such a change could occur.

Next morning, the temperature was in the mid 20s and the ground was white with snow, blown about by strong NW winds. That night the temperature dropped on down to 5 above—a drop of 65 degrees in 38 hours. Tuscaloosa had a 69-degree plunge from 79 to 10. It was 2 below zero in Valley Head, the first time in history to have below zero temperatures in November in Alabama. Fourteen people died, including 13 in house fires. One person froze to death in Jackson County.

-J.B. Elliott