Record High, Record Low

This was the first November 11th in at least seven years that I did not mention the significance of 11/11/11 during my weathercast, but it is such a wild weather event that I will share it here on the blog.

Before I dive into the events of that historic day, I need to make one note about Oklahoma weather during transition months like November and March. The Great Plains are flat, and it is joked that there is nothing between Oklahoma and Canada except a few barbed-wire fences. For weather purposes, this is true. Here in the eastern Carolinas, we have the Appalachain Mountains to our west to impede cold weather. There are no mountains in Oklahoma. So, when a cold front comes barrelling down the plains, there can be extreme changes in weather.

This happened on November 11, 1911.

In Oklahoma City, the day started out warm. In fact, by afternoon, a new record high had been set with a temperature of 83 degrees. The extreme weather swing came with a cold front that dropped the temperature 66 degrees before midnight, setting a record low for the day at 17 degrees! Imagine, setting a record high temperature and a record low temperature on the same day. What may be even more amazing is that these were such extreme temperartures that both records still stand today. The temperature continued to fall, and another record low was set for the morning of November 12th. The map below shows the temperature extremes across Oklahoma with afternoon highs from 11/11/11 and morning lows from 11/12/11. Parts of Oklahoma were close to 90 degrees, only to drop into the teens in just a few hours.



This strong cold front pushed across much of the nation, and was written about in Springfield, MO: "By 2:30 pm, a dense greenish black bank of clouds was rising along the western horizon. By 3:30 pm dark and ominous appearing clouds extended along the northwestern horizon...and at 3:45 pm the winds shifted to northwest and immediately reached an extreme velocity of 74 mph. A temperature of 80 was recorded, breaking the record high temperature during any previous November in the last 25 years...and falling from 80 to 13 at midnight, which likewise breaks the record for low temperature this early in November. Rain, hail, sleet, and snow fell within a period of less than 2 hours, and a moderate electric storm commenced after the temperature had fallen to below freezing and more than an hour after the wind had shifted.

"The record for varieties of weather and violent fluctuations in meteorological elements during a 24-hour period has not heretofore been equaled at this station."

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