[Sca-cooks] Harvest times

Terry Decker t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Thu May 11 21:16:45 PDT 2006


>> If memory serves, 1881 was a relatively mild winter.  The really nasty 
>> one
>> was "The Big Die of '86, that essentially killed the free range cattle
>> industry.  Some of the Worst blizzards on record are those of 1885-86 and
>> 1886-87.
>>
>> Bear
>
> I guess that depends on where you were that year.  Laura Ingalls Wilder 
> was in
> De Smet South Dakota, which she wrote about in her book The Long Winter, 
> where
> snows and blizzards started in October 1880 and didn't stop until May 
> 1881.
>
> Huette, who grew up with those books...

De Smet didn't start keeping weather records until 1889, but Yankton 
recorded the following for 1880-81 in the Weather Service records (as lifted 
from one of the Wilders):

Date               High        Low

Oct 80             84            15
Nov 80            67           -5
Dec 80            64            -19
Jan 81             36            -32
Feb 81            52            -23
Mar 81           44            -8
Apr 81            79            -3
May 81           88             38

This doesn't say much about the number of storms or how long individual 
patches of bad weather hung on.  BTW, the winter 0f 81-82 is one of the 
warmest on record.

The winter of 1885-86 may be the worst on record for the plains.  It didn't 
last as long as the winter of 80-81, but temperatures hit extreme lows (-48 
to -70 in Montana) and left frozen cattle from Montana to Texas (it's 
estimated 50% of the cattle on the plains died).  Curiously, the Dakotas 
appear to have been less affected than places further west and Chicago was 
only an average 3 degrees below normal.

Bear 





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