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Sudden Change
Wed Mar 19, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. In the early settlement days, Illinois
frontiersmen referred to cold frontal passage as "Sudden Change" weather.
One remarkable sudden change, which occurred just before the 1836 Winter Solstice, was felt
from Minnesota and Kansas across to Ohio, but stamped its greatest mark on Illinois.
Reconstructing conditions from the few available weather observations, December 20 likely
dawned with a Colorado low entering southwestern Wisconsin and then taking a sharp turn due
north. In its wake, a powerful, southbound cold front bulged eastward, like a great bow strung
across Iowa and Illinois, preparing to let loose.
John Moses recalled watching a heavy black cloud advance from the northwest on hurricane-force
winds. A deep, bellowing accompanied an icy blast that froze the landscape with its passing.
Water in roadway puddles hardened in waves, sharp-edged and pointed. Wagon wheels ceased to
roll, as slushy ground hardened like cement.
Moses reported ice in streams thickened to between six inches and a foot in a few hours. A
thermometer in nearby Augusta plummeted 40 Fahrenheit degrees in 8 hours, reaching zero by
midday.
Recollections of other central Illinois residents during the Sudden Change described chickens
and ducks frozen in the mud before they could move. The temperature drop was so severe, a
gaggle of playing geese had the points of their wings frozen in the ice. Horsemen reportedly
froze to their saddles; others caught on the open prairies, and even in barnyards, died from
the cold.
Funding for The Weather Notebook comes through generous grants from The National Science
Foundation, and Subaru of America.
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