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The so-called “storm of the century” hit the eastern part of the
United States, killing hundreds and causing millions of dollars
in damages, on November 25, 1950.
Also known as the “Appalachian Storm,” it dumped record
amounts of snow in parts of the Appalachian Mountains.
Forming over North Carolina just before Thanksgiving, the storm
quickly moved north, striking western Pennsylvania, eastern
Ohio and West Virginia. These areas were blanketed with several
feet of snow for several days and travel was impossible for nearly
a week in some places.
An accompanying windstorm covered a far greater area. New York
City recorded a 94 mile-per-hour wind gust. At Bear Mountain, just
north of the city, a 140 mph gust was recorded.
On January 19, 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar
Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
By the time he was three years old, both of Poe’s parents had
died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a
wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England,
Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After
fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was
forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served
two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West
Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely
and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules
infractions.
Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none
of which had received much attention.
On February 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist,
was celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney,
Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its
hole on this day and sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into
its burrow, predicting six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow
means an early spring.
Groundhog Day has its roots in the ancient Christian tradition called
Candlemas, when clergy would bless and distribute candles needed
for winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter
would be. Germans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal–
the hedgehog–as a means of predicting weather. Once they came to
America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition,
although they switched from hedgehogs to groundhogs, which were
plentiful in the Keystone State.
Winter solstice 2019 in the Northern Hemisphere will be today (Sat)
at 8:19 P.M. (Pacific Time).
The winter solstice, also known as midwinter, occurs when one of the Earth’s
poles has its maximum tilt away from the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once
in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of
the year, when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky.
At the pole, there is continuous darkness or twilight around the winter
solstice. Its opposite is the summer solstice.
Illumination of Earth by the Sun on the day of the December solstice.
