1873 Easter blizzard raged for 3 days, killing pioneers
April 13
On this day in 1873, one of the worst winter storms ever to hit the plains raged for three days across southeast Nebraska, killing many settlers and livestock.
Official weather data regarding the storm is largely nonexistent but anecdotal histories from dozens of pioneer families have produced a consistent story of hardship and tragedy.
It had been an open winter and a warm Spring. Easter Sunday, April 13, dawned pleasant, according to written accounts, but rain began falling in the late afternoon, turning to sleet by evening. Howling winds woke many farmers overnight and by Monday morning 18 inches of wet, heavy snow had buried their homesteads.
The storm continued unabated for three days, according to a farm wife living near present-day York, Nebraska “And there was scarcely a minute during the seventy-two hours that an object of any dimension could be discerned ten steps distant.”
The woman recalled the family saved their three hogs and 16 chickens by bringing them inside their 12 by 12 foot sod house.
During the storm Charles Emerson had been unable to tend to his team of horses kept in a dugout less than 100 feet from his soddy. When he found the dugout completely full of snow, he felt sure the horses had suffocated. The snow was so deep and hard packed the animals were unable to lie down but their body heat had melted enough space that they were able to breathe.
Stories of disaster and survival were recounted for years after the storm. A young woman, worried when her husband did not return, was found frozen along with her baby just steps from her sod house. But two families from Illinois, 13 people in all, who had come to Nebraska the day before the storm, looking for homesteads, were found huddled in a flimsy claim shack, nearly frozen but alive.
The U.S. Weather Service today defines a blizzard as a storm with sustained winds of more than 35 miles per hour and temperatures of 200 F or less, blowing or falling snow reducing visibility to less than a quarter of a mile. By that measure the deadly storm of 1873 would not qualify since it’s believed temperature during the three days only fell to 300 F.
Severe winter storms occur across much of North America and around the world but, like tornadoes, blizzards are a weather phenomenon associated most with the Great Plains. Some have occurred as far south as northern Texas, but they are more frequent the farther north you go. Nebraska averages about two blizzards a winter, according to modern weather data, while four or five storms a year strike the prairies of southern Canada.
Only six U.S. states; Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee, have not seen a blizzard, according to official weather data. The number of blizzards elsewhere, however, is on the rise. Between 1960 and 1994, one researcher reports, the U.S. experienced an average of nine blizzards a winter. Since 1995 that average has jumped to nearly 20. Some researches say the increase may partially be due to better reporting of storm data, however.
But like Nebraska’s warm Spring blizzard of 1873, out-of-season Fall and Spring storms remain most common on North America’s Great Plains,continuing to catch people off guard, sometimes with tragic results. An early October storm in 2013 killed more than 70,000 head of cattle in Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota, according to the Nebraska Department of
Agriculture, resulting in economic losses of more than $30 billion (with a B) to ranchers in three states. In addition, 200 miles of Interstate 90 was closed, more than 70 motorists were trapped in their vehicles and three people died in Nebraska in a storm-related traffic accident.
The Anna Bemis Palmer Museum Seventh and Grant Avenue in the York,
Nebraska, Community Center Is considered on the state’s best local history museums. It includes an exhibit depicting the inside of an early sod house, in additon to a pioneer wagon, other period rooms and an early bank interior. The museum also chronicles the York community history through Native American settlement, the turn of the century, the two World Wars and local disasters. Open Monday through Saturday 8 to 5. For more information go to cityofyork.net, fax (402) 362 0347 or call (402) 362-1844.