MIAMI'S FIRST SNOWFALL

[HURAKAN]

MIAMI'S FIRST SNOWFALL

On January 19, 1977, Old Man Winter paid an unwelcomed visit to residents of Miami, Florida (yes, Florida, not Ohio) and brought along a surprise gift -- snow! For the first time in the history of the extreme south of Florida, snow danced through the air and dusted the ground briefly. A quarter century later, the scene has not been repeated.

The event was but one in a series of frigid weather headlines in the United States during 1977, and in many cities, it drove news of President Jimmy Carter's inauguration from the top story of the day. The Winter of 1976-77 will long be remembered by residents in the eastern half of the United States and the southeastern half of Canada. The winter ranked as the coldest to date in the US east of about the Mississippi River, averaging 4-6 Fo below normal (2.2-3.3 Co below).

In a winter where abnormal was normal, January 1977 was the showcase month in many areas. In the US from New Hampshire to Minnesota and south to Louisiana and Florida, 64 cities registered their coldest or second coldest January on record. For twenty four metropoli, it was also the coldest month ever experienced.

The cause of the unrelenting cold was a persistent atmospheric circulation pattern that established itself in early autumn 1976 and remained remarkably unchanged until late February 1977. The Aleutian Low, a semi-permanent feature of the annual circulation map, was especially deep and large that winter, spreading to cover most of the North Pacific by January. It maintained a stronger-than-normal upper-level ridge over western North America and a deeper-than-normal upper-level trough over eastern regions of the continent. A large blocking high pressure cell pushed the polar vortex far south into southern Canada, and this extremely cold air streamed out from the arctic across the eastern and central United States and southeastern Canada.

Rest of the Story

[NC George]

I remember one time we drove from NC to Miami for Christmas (1989.) Snowed from Fayetteville, NC all the way to S of Ft. Pierce in Florida. We were one of the last cars to make it across the bridge in Jacksonville on I-95, it closed shortly after we passed due to ice on the bridge, lots of people had to stay in shelters N of the river.

I told my parents we shouldn't go. What was normally a 15 hour drive turned into a 30 hour ordeal, and we had to turn around and come back 2 days after we arrived. On top of this, we missed the only white Christmas in my neck of NC in recent history.

[jdray]

I remember one time we drove from NC to Miami for Christmas (1989.) Snowed from Fayetteville, NC all the way to S of Ft. Pierce in Florida. We were one of the last cars to make it across the bridge in Jacksonville on I-95, it closed shortly after we passed due to ice on the bridge, lots of people had to stay in shelters N of the river.

I told my parents we shouldn't go. What was normally a 15 hour drive turned into a 30 hour ordeal, and we had to turn around and come back 2 days after we arrived. On top of this, we missed the only white Christmas in my neck of NC in recent history.

I had fun sledding down what few hills we have here in NE Florida that Christmas.