Seasons

The Big Blowdown of 1950 – – The Adirondack Almanack

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The Big Blowdown of 1950 – – The Adirondack Almanack

The Adirondacks is prone to powerful windstorms, isolated tornadoes, and occasional hurricanes, derechos, and microbursts. Perhaps the second most destructive of these in modern Adirondack history (next to the 1998 Ice Storm) occurred in November, 1950.

The Big Blowdown brought heavy rains and winds in excess of 100 mph. In a single day – November 25th – more than 800,000 acres of timber was heavily damaged. The storm caused a complete shutdown of the roads and trails across large swaths of the park, a historic suspension of the State Constitution, a temporary glut in the spruce market, and a political impact that continues to this day.

Despite several days of rain that preceded the storm, hundreds of hunters were out for the last weekend of the season, including Adirondack conservationist Paul Schaefer, hunting in heavy rain near Eleventh Mountain in western Warren County. “When the top 40 feet of a great spruce suddenly cracked and blew almost over our heads,” he remembered, “we knew it was high time to get home.”

The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 in the Adirondacks.

The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 – New England Historical Society

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The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 – New England Historical Society

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called the Appalachian storm one of the most ‘meteorologically unique’ storms ever because it produced both record high and record low temperatures. At 6:30 pm on November 25, snow battered Pittsburgh and temperatures fell to 9 degrees. But in Buffalo, 200 miles away, temperatures reached a balmy 54 degrees.

As a result, the Appalachian Storm was called ‘perhaps the greatest combination of extreme atmospheric elements ever seen in the eastern United States.’

The monster storm formed on Nov. 24 as an extratropical cyclone in southeast North Carolina. It brought warm Atlantic air northwestward even as an Arctic front moved to the southeast through Ohio. The storm caused high winds, heavy rains and coastal flooding from Maine to Florida.

It stretched as far west as Ohio. Blizzards struck the western slopes of the Appalachians, dumping the most snow ever on the mountainsides.

One of the oddest features of the storm was that it moved from east to west. But more than 99 percent of cyclones move the other way — from west to east.

The storm blanketed Ohio – including Columbus, where Ohio State and the University of Michigan played their annual game despite the weather.

Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 – Wikipedia

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Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 – Wikipedia

The Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950 was a large extratropical cyclone which moved through the Eastern United States, causing significant winds, heavy rains east of the Appalachians, and blizzard conditions along the western slopes of the mountain chain. Hurricane-force winds, peaking at 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) in Concord, New Hampshire and 160 miles per hour (260 km/h) in the New England highlands, disrupted power to 1,000,000 customers during the event. In all, the storm impacted 22 states, killing 353, injuring over 160, and creating US$66.7 million in damage (1950 dollars). At the time, U.S. insurance companies paid more money out to their policy holders for damage resulting from this cyclone than for any other previous storm or hurricane. The cyclone is also one of only twenty-six storms to rank as a Category 5 on the Regional Snowfall Index.

In November 1950, the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950, during the weekend of Thanksgiving knocked out power for 1 million Americans and knocked down 800,000 acres of timber in the Adirondack Park and produced record breaking snow in Ohio.
This storm produced 108 mph winds in Newark, NJ -- the strongest winds ever recorded in New Jersey, and Albany had sustained winds at 50-60 MPH for hours, with a gust recorded at 83 MPH.
 
So yes, we can have very bad weather in late November, and it's not only blizzards that can hit then.

You Can Often Tell When Rain is Coming

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You can often tell when a rain storm is about to come in the woods by a gentle breeze that mostly touches the tops of the trees. Often there will be little breeze at the ground level but you can hear the trees blowing in the wind.

The sky gets darker, you might even feel a few big drops of water. In the summer, if it’s a thunderstorm you might hear a clap or two of thunder. Then sometimes it gently ramps up, but usually it comes down strong, quickly dropping quite a bit of water on your head. You seek shelter as soon you know you will get soaked.

Rain Falls on Helldiver Pond

Implicit Bias Training’s Effect On Policing Unclear : NPR

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NYPD Study: Implicit Bias Training’s Effect On Policing Unclear : NPR

But from a purely utilitarian perspective, do such moments of "self-reflection," as the NYPD's Tucker put it, actually lead to fairer policing, especially given the unresolved debate among researchers about how — or even whether — implicit bias governs behavior?

Correll, the psychology professor, says the training itself probably doesn't hurt, but there's an opportunity cost to consider, especially if the effort to "fix" implicit bias in officers displaces other kinds of training or gives a city an excuse to ignore factors that are external to policing.