Resources
- Blizzards: UCARSnow whirling around in wind blowing faster than highway speed limits makes the whole world look white. Imagine snow so deep that second graders can’t see over the top of it. The wind and the snow may cause a power outage and collapse roofs. That’s what you can expect from a blizzard.
- What is a Ground Blizzard?The most well-known blizzards are winter storms that produce several inches occurring with strong winds that cause blowing snow and whiteout conditions, but not all blizzards happen this way. In the Midwest, ground blizzards develop with little or no concurrent (or new) snowfall. One of the most infamous ground blizzards was the Children's Blizzard of 1888, which killed an estimated 235 people in the Great Plains.
- Winter Weather: Ready.govWinter storms create a higher risk of car accidents, hypothermia, frostbite, carbon monoxide poisoning, and heart attacks from overexertion. Winter storms including blizzards can bring extreme cold, freezing rain, snow, ice and high winds.
Research & Reference
- Blizzard: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on blizzards. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
Blizzards and Winter Cyclones
Look back at historical blizzards that paralyzed major U.S. cities. Then probe the official definition of a blizzard, the cold-weather cyclone systems that create them, and the revolution in forecasting blizzards since 1993. Focus on the role of the jet stream, and dispel a common misunderstanding of the polar vortex.
Source: Kanopy
Perspectives
The Children's Blizzard
"David Laskin deploys historical fact of the finest grain to tell the story of a monstrous blizzard that caught the settlers of the Great Plains utterly by surprise. . . . This is a book best read with a fire roaring in the hearth and a blanket and box of tissues near at hand." -- Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City "Heartbreaking. . . . This account of the 1888 blizzard reads like a thriller." -- Entertainment Weekly The gripping true story of an epic prairie snowstorm that killed hundreds of newly arrived settlers and cast a shadow on the promise of the American frontier. January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent. By the next morning, some five hundred people lay dead on the drifted prairie, many of them children who had perished on their way home from country schools. In a few terrifying hours, the hopes of the pioneers had been blasted by the bitter realities of their harsh environment. Recent immigrants from Germany, Norway, Denmark, and the Ukraine learned that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled. With the storm as its dramatic, heartbreaking focal point, The Children's Blizzard captures this pivotal moment in American history by tracing the stories of five families who were forever changed that day. David Laskin has produced a masterful portrait of a tragic crucible in the settlement of the American heartland. The P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Epic Snowfall and the Lake Effect
The region downwind from the Great Lakes is famous for its lake effect snowstorms, which can total more than 200 inches of snow per year for some locations. Examine the factors behind this phenomenon as well as the mortal danger posed by blizzards, as shown by the tragic Children's Blizzard of 1888.
Source: Kanopy