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► FROM PAGE 1Biggest snowsKiller storm left people, cattle deadIn those days.1 *Joe Addison was 15 in 1918 and living in Hays, where his fatherowned and operated the local phone company. A winter storm knocked out service between Salina and Hays, so Addison and another individual were sent by train to Salina, where they started re-stringing the linesbetween here and Brookville.“The poles were 18 to 20 feet tall, and they put them in the ground three to four feet. The snow was so deep we could walk on the hard crust and reach up and touch the wires,” he said.A storm the year before shut down rail travel in western Kansas for several days.The snow was too deep for Kansas equipment to handle, recalled HaroldButler, who was a school boy in the Logan County town of Winona.“They had to bring in rotary snowplows from Nebraska and Wyoming to blow the lines clear/1 he said.In 1912 Salina was the victim of a Feb. 26 blizzard that clogged Santa Fe Avenue with 5- to 6-foot drifts. That snowfall was the most since a 24-incher fell in February 1900.But the mother of all snows to hit Salina and the rest of the Great Plains was the blizzard of January 1886. Temperatures were 10 to 20 degrees below zero with winds blowing as high as 40 mph, producing a wind chill between minus 79 and minus 85 degrees. The storm was a killer. Scores of people died. Many settlers were found later frozen in their beds. Approximately 80 percent of the cattle caught in the storm’sHere are some Salina snow facts from the Weather Data Library at Kansas State University:■ Top five snowiest months, in inches:January 1979 - 32.7 February 1971 - 23 February 1960 - 20.5 February 1980 - 20.1 March 1960-18,5I Top five snowiest seasons, in inches:1959.60-52.2 1978-79-48 1983-84 - 35.6 1970-71 -33.6 1982-83-32.8path also perished.The fact that the biggest storms have fallen on Salina in the early months of the year is no coincidence. Just since 1949, the largest monthly snowfalls have occurred in January, February and March: 32.7 inches in January 1979, 23 inches in February 1971 and 18% inches in March 1960. December was a close fourth with 16,1 inches in 1983.January and February also were the leaders in average snowfall depths. Since 1949, January has averaged 5.6 inches of snow, followed by February with 4.7 inches. December is the third snowiest with an average of 4 inches. March is fourth with an average of 3.2 inches of snow.In the past 44 years, the seasonal snowfall record of 52.2 inches was set in the winter of 1959-60. The winter of 1978-79 was second with 48 inches of snow. Third was 1983-84 with 35.6 inches.The seasonal average snowfall for Salina is 19.6 inches.► FROM PAGE 1
Newspaper Details
Salina Journal
Salina, Kansas, US
Wed, Jan 13, 1993
Page 17
Full Page
Clipped by
Salina P.
KS, USA 19 Jan 2023
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