The super winter of 2033-2034 was a weather event that occurred in the Eastern United States. Beginning in December 2033 and lasting until March, it produced one of the coldest winters on record in all states east of the Rockies. The Midwestern United States, Great Lakes Region, Ohio Valley and Missippi Valley were hit the hardest. Only the United States from the Rocky Mountains and westward escaped its effects.
January 2034 was the coldest month on record in the contiguous U.S, narrowly eclipsing January 1979. It was also the coldest month ever for Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. While the winters of 2024-25 and 2026-27 was one of the coldest on record for Great Plains and Ohio Valley the winters following were much milder; 2029-30 had a very mild winter across the upper-Midwest (the mildest since 1877-78); 2031-32 in the northeast and New England, 2028-29 in the Western United States and 2032-33 in the Southeastern United States.
Many areas also saw snow records obliterated along with their cold records.
Summer and Autumn 2033
Weather conditions during the months leading up to the winter were actually rather warm. The following summer was the warmest on record in the city of Chicago averaging 77.0-degrees with thirty-five 90-degree days and five 100-degree days including a record 13-consecutive 90-degree days from June 26th to July 8th including a record high 105-degrees on July 4th. Grand Rapids, Michigan also had a record warm summer averaging 75.0-degrees and in Muskegon the average temperature was 72.8-degrees. It was the warmest summer on record statewide for Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, while it was also one of the wettest year on record for South Dakota and Nebraska ironically. In the city of Chicago June averaged 73.6-degrees (the fourth warmest on record) while July averaged 80.5-degrees making it the fourth warmest on record and August averaged 76.7-degrees. While the Great Plaines saw a wet period of warm and humid weather, the Great Lakes saw a much drier pattern, June 26th to September 17th only produced 6.87" of rain for Chicago and 5.19" for Milwaukee as forest fires broke out before a rainstorm from remnants of Hurricane Gavin delivered up to 5" of rain on the region helping end the drought. This was followed by a cooler period of weather that lasted until October 20th when the mild weather returned and the following November was one of the mildest on record averaging 47.8 degrees in Chicago and being the mildest on record in Indianapolis. Chicago didn't even record its first sub-freezing temperature until November 13th, a record late date by five days.
Winter of 2033-2034
Prelude to the Snowzilla of 2033 and the Cold-Wave of 2034
The period form December 1st to December 9th was one of the mildest opening 9 days of December on record as in the city of Chicago the average temperature for the first 9 days of the month was 45.8-degrees and not once did the temperature ever drop below 35-degrees, meanwhile in Minneapolis they recorded 4.4" of snow during that period and a low of 23 degrees on the sixth. A cold front passed through the region on the 10th delivering the city its first snowfall of the entire season of just 0.1" its latest on record beating 1999's record of December 7th. The seasonably cold pattern persisted for just under a week with the coldest day being December 13th with a low of 4 degrees in Chicago with a high of 20 a low of 2 degrees in Milwaukee with a high of 18, -3 in Madison with a high of 10 and -10 in Minneapolis with a high of 6, during the following day a warm front passed through delivering 0.6" of snow to Chicago and 1.2" to Milwaukee before causing the high the next four days to rise to 30, 36, 45 and 57 in Chicago; 28, 32, 39 and 50 in Milwaukee, 10, 18, 25 and 39 in Minneapolis. On December 18th, the city of Milwaukee broke their record high set in 1877 with a temperature of 61, in Chicago they tied their record with 62 degrees and 70-degree temperature penetrated as far north as Indianapolis, Springfield and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That day there were tornado warnings across six states (Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan). On December 10th weather forecasts began calling for a massive snowstorm on the 20th and 21st, as a result of advanced weather satellites launched in 2029, but it became seen as a joke as a series of 50-65 degree days began passing by on the 17th to the 19th. On December 17th a cold front passed through Minneapolis giving the city 5.3-inches of snow.
Blizzard of 2033
Tuesday - December 20th
Although, that night the temperature plummeted in St. Louis from 65 degrees at 10pm to 37 at 10am with a high of 40 as a cold front passed with a high pressure of 1028mb centered around the Nebraska-Colorado-Kansas state line around noon followed by an artic high pressure system centered in Southern Manitoba. December 19th in Chicago began with more of the usual, a morning low of 48 climbing to 53 degrees by 9am before the temperature suddenly stayed there and the skies got increasingly cloudy as the cold front was approaching and the temperature would lock in at 53 degrees until noon when it would start to slowly drop to 35-degrees by midnight and during which time the city would see 0.33" of rainfall. By midnight the system of cold air was centered halfway down the Kansas-Colorado state line and a system of low pressure 1005mb formed around Houston along the cold front which began traveling up the front to where it bended around central Illinois and slowly heading south, during which time it was snowing in Wester Iowa and Northwestern Missouri along with southeastern Missouri.
Tuesday Morningedit | edit source
On Tuesday, December 20th, residents in the Chicago area woke up around 7am to 36 degree temps, partly cloudy skies and 20-mph winds. Many businesses remained open as commuters headed to work and flights continued to pour in as people wanted to visit their families before the storm set in but the system was hampering flights west of Chicago. The temperature in Chicago peaked at 37 degrees at 8am before clouds set in and it dropped to 29 degrees by 10am with freezing rain starting to fall before as the temperature slowly began to crawl up again peaking at 33 degrees by noon as winds increased from 17-mph to 23-mph with gusts of up to 40-mph.
Tuesday Afternoon and Evening
By the time the precipitation switched to snow (at 12:08pm) in Chicago 0.31" of freezing rain had already fallen making the snow easier to stick to the ground and by 1pm 0.8-inches of snow had already fallen more than the entire winter so far. The low pressure of the system continued to deepen as it head north along the track of the front attracting cold dry air from the north and northwest and warm moist air from the south, deepening to 996mb by noon. By 3-pm O'Hare and Midway Airports were completely shut down and this is when most schools let out 2 to 4 inches of snow had already fallen across the Chicagoland area and it was continuing to come down hard with winds of up to 33-mph and visibility down to a quarter-mile. By 5pm, when most workplaces let out 4 to 6 inches had fallen across the area and this is when the storm picked up in intensity as over the next hour winds increased from 25 to 35-mph, gusts went from 35 to 45mph and the snowfall rate reached its heaviest point yet during the height of rush hour as between 5 and 6pm 2.1-inches of snow fell completely stalling traffic in its tracks as traffic times were starting to surpass 5-hours. By 6pm the pressure had deepened to 988mb and the storm was in a perfect comma shape moving at around 2-mph in east direction. At 7pm the temperature in the city dropped from 32 to 31 degrees being the last 32-degree reading the city would see for the next several weeks. By 8pm many vehicles were getting trapped on the roads as 8 to 11-inches had on the area fallen in around 8-hours reducing street cleaning abilities and the gusts were starting to surpass 50-mph. By 10pm, 11.8-inches of snow had fallen at O'Hare Airport officially becoming the snowiest December day in the city's history surpassing December 11th, 1903s record of 11.0-inches. By this time it was estimated that up to 2,500 vehicles and 100 busses were stuck along Chicago's roads, and many people began walking home by foot abandoning their cars despite smart-device warnings not to. Many self-driving cars had issues as well with the snow ruts in the roads and this caused many transmissions to burn out and many electric cars had issues as well getting overheated. In Southern Illinois and Indiana freezing rain created major travel issues for holiday travelers and downed many power lines where only those with solar panels remained with power before the freezing rain switched over into snow.
Wednesday - December 21st
By midnight 14.1-inches had fallen with a total depth of 12-inches as the storm continued to deliver snow to the Chicagoland area at rates of 1-2 inches an hour throughout the night and many people still hadn't made it home from work since the night before. Many people who worked from home didn't have any commuting issues and continued their workday as usual, and many schools who were scheduled to have their last day of school before winter break that day did so online through virtual chats. Temperatures in Chicago remained virtually stagnant throughout most of the day peaking at 31 degrees at around 4am before dropping to 29 degrees by 6-7am ironically around the coldest time of the day. The temperature rose again to 31 degrees from 10am to noon before slowly starting to drop. During that morning around 6am, the storm finally started to move eastward again around 5am the snowfall rate started to slowdown, and by 6am, 23.1-inches had fallen at O'Hare Airport making it officially the largest snowstorm the city had ever seen breaking the 23.0-inch mark the Big Snow of 1967 set on January 26-27, 1967. Rescue crews had been dispatched getting people out of their stranded cars or at shelters and many of the plow drivers were starting to get fatigued from working nonstop since noon the previous day along with self-driving plows starting to run out of battery power. After 7am, the snowfall rate had finally dropped to under an inch an hour after 24.2-inches had fallen at O'Hare and 26.8-inches at Midway Airport. But the winds were not dying down and snow was falling at the rate of 0.3" to 0.6" an hour between 7am and 2pm, as a matter of fact winds were peaking around the end of that as the storm started to very briefly reverse direction being blocked by a warm front over the Florida Peninsula and the storm was getting squeezed by the artic front whose high pressure was divided in two one center over Fargo at 1036mb and 1032mb over Ontario. At noon Chicago shattered its previous 24-hour snowfall record of 20.0-inches set on February 1-2, 2011 by over half a foot at 26.5-inches. The temperature began to slowly fall after 12pm to 30-degrees then to 29-degrees by 5pm then 28-degrees by 8pm. When the snow finally stopped falling at 8:43pm the temperature was down to 27-degrees, but cleanup continues to be hampered as the arctic front approached and clearing skies caused the temperature to plummet to 18-degrees by midnight and winds continued to remain strong remaining at around 25-35 mph gusting anywhere from 35-45 mph.
| City | Snowfall |
|---|---|
| Joliet | 40.5 |
| Bolingbrook | 38.5 |
| Napperville | 37.0 |
| Aurora | 35.2 |
| Midway Airport- Chicago | 32.8 |
| Kalamazoo | 31.2 |
| South Bend | 30.4 |
| O'Hare Airport- Chicago | 30.1 |
| Davenport | 27.7 |
| Fort Wayne | 25.3 |
| Waukegan | 23.7 |
| Grand Rapids | 19.2 |
| Toldeo | 18.8 |
| Detroit | 18.6 |
| Milwaukee | 17.2 |
| St. Louis, Missouri | 16.5 |
| Cleveland | 15.2 |
| Lansing | 13.3 |
| Indianapolis | 12.0 |
| Flint | 11.6 |
| Bloomington, Indiana | 6.7 |
| Evansville | 1.3 |
| Louisville | 0.5 |
Prelude to the First Blizzard
Remainder of December
Throughout the night and early morning hours of December 22nd, temperatures continued to plummet until they reached 3 degrees by 6am as the arctic front passed over the city after which the winds finally died down. At 4am that night the temperature was 4 degrees with winds of 25-mph gusting to 40-mph creating near ground blizzard conditions of the heavy, wet, fresh snow that was 27-inches deep at O'Hare and 29-inches deep at Midway. Cleanup became much more effective after the winds started dying down during the late morning and early afternoon hours but it would take weeks until minor and neighborhood streets were fully cleared. By December 23rd, a system of low pressure centered over Colorado traveling eastbound was about to colide with a cold air mass centered over Saskatchewan was about to deliver more snow to the region just starting to get out of the paralysis of the December 20-21 Supersnow. On December 24-25 the Chicagoland area was hit by a Colorado low that delivered 8.4-inches of snow to Chicago and 13.6-inches to Milwaukee as December 2033 officially became the snowiest December on record for the city of Chicago with a total of 39.2-inches. Before December 21st, the city only logged 3 subfreezing highs, the lowest since 2020, but nobody suspected at the time that December 20th would be the last above freezing temperature the region would see until a week and a half until February. On Christmas Day the depth in Chicago reached an astonishing 31-inches beating the previous record set on January 15th, 1979 at 29-inches. Meanwhile, that storm combined with a coastal low that formed a nor'easter producing up to 3-5 inches from Richmond, Virginia to Baltimore then 5-12 inches from Baltimore to Trenton, New Jersey then 12-20 inches up to western Connecticut before going through a bombogenesis and delivering up to 36-inches in parts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Another system delivered 4-inches of snow to Chicago and 7-inches to Grand Rapids followed by a brief cold spell before warming up again into the 20s as pre-new years storm brought 11.6-inches to Chicago and 10.4-inches to Detroit before picking up moisture over Buffalo and dumping 20.5-inches on the city over the course of the 30th and 31st of December. December 2033 was the snowiest month the city of Chicago had ever seen at 54.8-inches shattering the previous record of 42.5-inches set in January 1918 and obliterating the snowiest December record of 33.3-inches set in 1951 and on level the snow was 36-inches deep.
Prelude to the Blizzard
Two more systems delivered snow to the region of similar maginitude of snowfall, with 5.8-inches on the 2nd and 7.4-inches on the 5th as temperatures remained moderated by the heavy snowpack throughout the entire Midwest as it never went above 27-degrees as far south as Springfield and never went above 41-degrees as far south as Nashville, Tennessee. On January 5th after the snow stopped falling at 5pm the temperature plummeted from 13 degrees to 5 degrees by midnight to -6 degrees by midnight the next day. During the next several days with no forseeable major snowfalls in the forecast and a windy cold pattern expected to hit on the 10th, the mayor and city government launched an all out "Snow Blitz" to plow and tow as necessary in a concentrated effort to get the city back in full running order as soon as possible. The flat open topography of Illinois, Indiana and Iowa combined with the vast farmland and deep snow lacking forest cover meant that the perfect conditions in a perfect windstorm set up could cripple the area. During the 17 days from December 20th, 2033 to January 5th, 2034 roughtly 68.0 inches of snow would fall on Chicago and 63.6 would fall on Detroit already making it one of the snowiest winters on record with no thawing at all in-between followed by a cold wave after the 5th that would last for several weeks. School was set to begin on January 9th, which turned out to be a sunny 18 degree day with a low of -2 that morning and with a calm sunny day many used it as an opportunity to clear the roads and dig out the region, as plows were finally starting to reach side off roads. Another system on January 5th-6th stalled and the center of low pressure centered around Erie, Pennsylvania deepened, snowfall rates along the Ohio Valley into the states of Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky began to pile up to rates of 1-2 inches an hour with the daily snowfall in Louisville reaching 10.8-inches and Cincinnati reaching 10.3-inches where it was reported with near blizzard conditions as far south as Kentucky.
| City | Amount |
|---|---|
| Louisville | 14.5 |
| Cincinnati | 14.2 |
| Indianapolis | 12.0 |
| Detroit | 9.5 |
| Chicago | 7.4 |
| Nashville | 4.8 |
Onset
On Tuesday, January 10th an arctic front had swept eastward from the Great Plains to the Midwest. Between 6:00am and 8:00am a wall of snow accompanied by the cold front's passage through Des Moines, Iowa along with a temperature drop of almost 20 degrees. Between 8:00am and 10:00am Cedar Rapids reported similar conditions. Davenport, Peoria, Springfield and St. Louis were also hit strongly by the cold front. All schools and businesses that day were ordered to do their operations virtually given the weather reports but many had not heeded the advice.
From midnight to noon on that day the temperature at O'Hare Airport had risen from 2 degrees to 18 degrees as it looked like it might be the first day where the temperature failed to drop below zero since January 5th. Snow began falling around 10am that day with about half an inch of snow falling prior to the beginning of the blizzard. By 2pm the temperature was 18 degrees and 1.4 inches of new snow had already fallen on top of the already three feet of snow over the region as winds increased from 8-mph at noon to 30-mph by then decreasing visibility 3-miles to 0.50-miles. At 2:00pm the white wall of snow reached O'Hare Airport as visibility plummeted from 0.50-miles to 0.00-miles instantly where it would stay until 1:45am the next day.
Tuesday Evening
During the three hours after the cold front hit the temperature at Chicago plummeted from 18 degrees to 0 degrees, snow built up rapidly reaching bumper-high by 2:30pm, many vehicles out on the road when the blizzard hit had particles of snow blown into their batteries and radiators causing many vehicles mechanical issues. Many roads instantly became impassable within an hour after the blizzard hit, combined with vehicles facing mechanical issues from the conditions made people camp out at their schools and workplaces. For example an eighteen wheeler hybrid truck had snow blow into its radiator melt and saturate the battery and electrical wiring causing it to stall on the Dan Ryan Expressway virtually shutting down two lanes of northbound traffic.
Those attempting to travel by foot also found travel very difficult with the high winds, zero visibility, deep snow and very low temperatures made walking very dangerous. By 5pm there was no snow being reported by live satellite imagery, infrared data or live weather reports and it became clear that snow wasn't falling from the sky but blowing in form the countryside to the west of the region. The worst conditions continued to batter Chicago as between 3pm and 2am the next day winds never went below 38-mph and gusted as high as 69-mph (nice).
Duration and Cleanup
Wednesday, January 11th
By midnight, an estimated 13,000 cars were estimated to be stranded on Chicagoland roads and over the course of the late-morning and early afternoon hours as the conditions started to improve as the front that stalled over Central Ontario started to slowly move eastward again created blizzard and whiteout conditions for Cleveland and Buffalo. The temperature plummeted down to -12 that morning with winds of 35mph creating wind chills of -48, it was reported that city snow cleaning staff were on the verge of mental and psychological breakdowns from constantly working up to 120-hours a week since the December 20-21 storm. Full automation of the CTA system in 2028 prevented the deadly accidents that occurred during the Blizzard of 1999 but a train got stuck into a 13-foot drift in By noon that day temperatures. During the evening the Illinois Government and Governor Matthew Bogusz ordered the national guard to dig out the city of Chicago and declared all of Northern Illinois a Federal Disaster Area. During the day as the winds slowly calmed down as the high pressure system pushed the front further away it led to better conditions for cleaning the snow but winds still remained 15-mph leading to moderate drifting as temperatures remained below zero the entire day with a afternoon high of -3. In Detroit, the white out conditions raged on with winds of up to 24-mph as the arctic front continued to move south. The snow stopped
January 11-14 Cold Wave
The arctic front with a central high pressure of up to 1046mb led to many cold records being broken during the week with temperatures of 0 being recorded as far south as Montgomery, Alabama on January 14th and 32-degree temperatures being reported as far south as Homeland, Florida. On January 13th, New York's Central Park recorded a low of -3, Washington National Airport recorded a low of -4, Nashville, Tennessee recorded a low of -16 and Chicago recorded a low of -20. During the four day period not once did the temperature in Minneapolis ever go above -12 reaching a low of -28 on January 11th. This resulted in the percentage of the Great Lakes covered in ice increasing from 6.7% on January 5th to 25.6% on January 15th. January 2034 was the coldest month on record for the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa. Snowfall was well above average all throughout the region and temperatures did not rise above freezing throughout the entire month in a massive swath of land from Northeastern Missouri to central Pennsylvania northward. Florida's citrus industry took a massive hit from the cold wave causing $10-billion in damages leading to a shortage of orange juice the following spring. There were reports of ice gorges as far south as Memphis with blocks of ice flowing down as far south as Baton Rouge. While medical supplies had to be sent in by drones into cities hit by the ground blizzard and snow removal equipment had to be flown in.
January 15-17 Little Relief
The polar air did recede a little bit with highs going up to 30 degrees in Louisville, 35 in Nashville but remaining at 17 and 18 degrees in Chicago on the 15th and 16th as deep snow cover did little to allow warmer air up into the region. Then, just as the cleanup was finally starting to make real progress and life was starting to get slowly back to normal another polar vortex made its way south though not as severe as the previous one.
January 18-23 Polar Outbreak II
The temperatures did start to drop although this cold wave travelled somewhat further east than the previous one with temperatures in Chicago dropping to -13 on the 18th, reaching -11 in Indianapolis and -6 in Louisville reaching sub-zero lows as far south as Ashville, North Carolina, Huntsville, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi with freezing temperatures reaching as far south as Fort Myers and West Palm Beach, Florida causing another round of damage to the nation's citrus industry. By the end of this arctic outbreak, Great Lakes ice coverage had increased from 27% to 61% and the Ohio River froze to the point where people could walk across the river in both Louisville and Cincinnati for the first time since 1977. The Mississippi River also froze to almost near the same point as well. Ice gorges were being reported as far south as the mouth of the Mississippi before going out into the Gulf to rapidly melt. Meanwhile, the Hudson River in New York City was beginning to have their shipping industry hampered by ice gorges.
January 23-31 The First Arctic Relief
This was the month where for the first time in many days temperatures rose above freezing as far north as Louisville and Cincinnati and where temperatures reached into the 20s as far north as Madison, Wisconsin. On January 24th, in Chicago, for the first time since January 5th the city went an entire day without the temperature dropping below 0 and the afternoon high rising above 20 degrees with a high of 21, after an overnight storm from an Alberta Clipper dropped 4.1 inches on the city the previous day. While another outbreak of sub-zero lows occurred from the 27th to the 29th, they weren't as far reaching nor as severe as the two previous outbreaks, with temperatures only dropping to -5 on the 28th and sub-zero temperatures only making it down to Indianapolis and Dayton, Ohio. Afternoon highs in Chicago reached 27 degrees on the 25th and 26th, and in Louisville they reached 32 and 34 degrees, while in Bowling Green they reached 35 and 39.
Records
January for the Record Books
| City | Average Temp | Previous Rec | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rockford, Illinois | 4.0-degrees | 4.7-degrees | 1912 |
| Chicago, Illinois | 8.0-degrees | 10.1-degrees | 1977 |
| Detroit, Michigan | 11.3-degrees | 12.7-degrees | 1977 |
| St. Louis, Missouri | 12.8-degrees | 14.0-degrees | 1940 |
| Buffalo, New York | 13.5-degrees | 13.8-degrees | 1977 |
| Cincinnati, Ohio | 13.9-degrees | 15.0-degrees | 1977 |
| Louisville, Kentucky | 15.6-degrees | 18.6-degrees | 1977 |
| Bowling Green, Kentucky | 17.2-degrees | 19.9-degrees | 1977 |
| Memphis, Tennessee | 25.6-degrees | 26.7-degrees | 1940 |
- Most Days in Birmingham, Alabama with a minimum temperature of 32 degrees or lower: 28 (previous record 27 in January, 2014)
- Everyday that month had a sub-zero low in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the highest morning low was -2 on January 4th
Overall
| Record | Amount | Date | Old Record | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest January | 20.9-Degrees | 2034 | 21.5-Degrees | 1979 |
| Most Great Lakes Ice Coverage | 96.9% | March 9th, 2034 | 94.7% | February 23rd, 1979 |
Chicago, Illinois
| Record | Amount | Date | Old Record | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most Snowfall in a Season | 108.8-inches | 2033-2034 | 93.2-inches | 2026-2027 |
| Largest Single Snowfall | 30.1-inches | December 20-21, 2034 | 23.0-inches | January 26-27, 1967 |
| Coldest Month | 8.0 Degrees | January, 2034 | 10.1 Degrees | January, 1977 |
| Snowiest Month | 54.8-inches | December, 2033 | 42.5-inches | January, 1918 |
| Month with the most sub-zero days | 21 Days | January, 2034 | 17 Days | January, 1977 |
| Greatest Consecutive Days With
Sub-Zero Lows |
18 Days | January 6th -
January 23rd |
10 Days | January 4th -
January 13th, 1912 |
| Most Sub-Zero Lows | 38 Days | 2033-34 | 30 Days
25 Days |
2026-2027
1884-1885 |
| Consecutive Days Below 32-Degrees | 53 Days | December 20th, 2033
February 11th, 2034 |
43 Days | December 27th, 1976
February 9th, 1977 |
| Most Snowfall in 30 Days | 73.7-inches | December 20th, 2033
January 19th, 2034 |
53.7-inches | December 27th, 1978
January 26th, 1979 |
| Most Days with 12" or More Snow Depth | 82 Days | December 20th, 2033
March 12th, 2034 |
48 Days | January 12th, 1979
March 1st, 1979 |
| Most Days with 16" or More Snow Depth | 79 Days | December 21st, 2033
March 10th, 2034 |
42 Days | January 13th, 1979
February 24th, 1979 |
| Most Days with 20" or More Snow Depth | 62 Days | December 21st, 2033
February 21st, 2034 |
29 Days | January 13th, 1979
February 11th, 1979 |
| Most Days with 24" or More Snow Depth | 61 Days | December 21st, 2033
February 20th, 2033 |
14 Days | January 25th -
February 7th, 1979 |
Detroit, Michigan
Buffalo, New York
| Record | Amount | Date | Old Record | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest January | 13.5-degrees | 2034 | 13.8-degrees | 1977 |
| Snowiest January | 74.8-inches | 2034 | 68.3-inches | 1977 |
Cleveland, Ohio
What Made It So Cold
Shifting Ocean Current Patterns
Record Mild Temperatures Elsewhere
While the period of January-March, 2034 was the coldest on record for every state east of Texas and the Central Great Plains with the exception of Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and South Carolina it was also the sixth warmest on record for the state of Washington and the fifteenth warmest for Oregon. It was also the warmest January-March period on record for the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Northern and Central Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories and northern Nunavut as well as the mildest winter in the Arctic Ocean. This caused any polar vortex that formed to be pushed southward well into the eastern continental United States while ocean patterns in the Atlantic very slowly shifted from a moderate to weak El Nino pattern to a more neutral to very weak La Nina when combined with the arctic and polar air penetrating further south than usual also prevented the warm Gulf Air from penetrating far into the Eastern United States throughout late-December well into March.
Record Deep Snow Cover
In Popular Culture
It became common themes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes Regions as well as the Tennessee and Mississippi Valley for people to sport bumper stickers and t-shirts that said "I Survived The Winter of 2034". Many viral videos began in late-January of people walking across and one even driving across the Ohio River from Louisville to Jeffersonville. Officials warned people in many areas where the snow drifts were deep enough to not jump from second and third story roofs into the snowdrifts but many did anyways. Many terms began to take form for the winter such as "Super Winter", "Elsa's Furry", "Mega Winter", "Coldzilla" "Nature's Flurry". Many states also nicknamed themselves during these months.
- Ohio called itself Ohberia
- Indiana nicknamed itself Indiberia
- Kentucky Called Itself the Burrgrass State
- Illinois called itself Chilinois
- Pennsylvania called itself Polarvania