Comparing significant historic weather events

We have just endured one of the most devastating weather events in living memory. Even as this is being written, there are still several hundred Connecticut Light & Power customers without power, and we are now 12 days after the event.As it turned out, Colebrook was lightly impacted compared to most of the remainder of the state; our leaves, for the most part, had already fallen, hence weren’t there to provide a surface for the snow to adhere to. I believe that our added elevation also contributed to a slightly lower air temperature, which lessened the moisture content of the two feet of snow that covered our surfaces, sparing us the utter devastation caused by broken trees and fractured branches.As bad as things were, it could have been worse. Our area was visited by an ice storm in 1942 that made our recent event pale by comparison. My mother began sporadically keeping weather records in the 1930s, something that became a daily occurrence with the purchase of five-year, leather-bound diaries beginning with 1940. As she wrote in a very small, clear print, she was able to say a great deal in a relatively small space; hence there is a wealth of information concerning country life before the coming of electricity and carrying it into the age of television. I think that right now is a good time to review what she had to say about the terrible ice storm of December 1942. This is the worst storm, as far as destruction goes, that I have ever experienced. It occurred a mere three weeks after my 10th birthday, and the images I retained are as vivid now as they were 69 years ago.That storm left hardly a tree or shrub unscathed, and by that I don’t mean that they lost a branch here and there. For the most part, trees consisted of long, tapering poles with a ring of limbs and branches surrounding the pole. The noise of crashing limbs was deafening, and I remember staying awake most of the night with my parents. It was not possible to go to sleep with the incessant noise. With the first streaks of light at dawn, I remember standing in the kitchen doorway and crying. When every tree in your backyard, as well as those that make up your familiar horizon, are totally altered, it can be an unnerving event, whether you are a child or an adult. Here are my mother’s observations on what to me is ‚ “the storm of the century.”January 1st, 1943. All power and phone lines down due to the December 28-31, 1942, ice storm. Roads clogged with fallen trees due to four days of ice accumulation.Jan. 2nd That was the worst ice storm ever recorded around here.Jan. 3rd Twenty-three out-of-town trucks and crews are working out of Winsted - cold weather. Some of the power trucks are from as far away as Pennsylvania.Jan 4th Thirty-two degrees this morning, eight degrees this afternoon. Thirty-four phone trucks are working, but no service yet.Jan. 5th Temperature 2° above zero with high winds.Jan. 6th Temperature still 2° above this morning; the day is clear, cold and windy.Jan. 7thA little snow fell during the night.Jan. 8th thru the 10th fine, normal weather for January.Jan. 11th Warmest day so far this month — 36° in the afternoon.Jan. 12th Snowing in the afternoon.Jan. 13th Cold and overcast.Jan. 14th 2° above this morning.Jan. 15th Three inches of heavy snow during the night, but the temperature got up to 40° in the afternoon.Jan. 16th Temperature in the 20s all day with a mean snow.Jan. 17th Sleeting all day & road a glare of ice.Jan. 18th Cold rain & sleet. School out early because of icy roads.Jan. 19th Temperature was 28° at dawn. High winds all day; it is terribly icy. Temperature was 34° in the afternoon, 17° by 9:30 PM.Jan. 20th Temperature 0° - everything a mass of ice. Litchfield, which missed the brunt of the ice earlier, is getting it bad.Jan. 21st 0° at dawn, 10°highest all day, still icy.Jan. 22nd -2°, highest all day 12°. Cold and ice continues.Jan. 23rd Raw, but a little warmer.Jan. 24th Morning temperature 19°, high in the afternoon was 40°.Jan. 25th Foggy in the AM, beautiful PM, temperature in the 50s.Jan. 26th Dark, with sleet and snow. The Casablanca Conference (Roosevelt & Churchill) ended.Jan. 27th 20° at dawn.Jan. 28th Began snowing again. The telephone & power crews from the December 1942 ice storm finished up their work.Now you can see why I gave every entry for what was nearly the entire month. Throughout that period, those crews worked day and night to restore phone and electrical service. It is important to remember that all the cleanup was done with axes and cross-cut or bow saws, as chainsaws had not yet made their appearance in these hills. Chainsaws and hay bailers, incidentally, were probably the most important of the labor-saving devices that have made their appearance in rural areas during the last 70 years, in my estimation.Hurricanes, such as the one that passed over us in 1938, leave uniform destruction, whether you live on a hilltop or in a valley; but floods, such as the one in 1955, do far more damage in the valleys than elsewhere, although the entire region suffers from the loss of utilities, communications and transportation. This past snow event was an example of weather on the rampage throughout a wide, multi-state area that varied in intensity from town to town.Weather watching in New England will always be a source of comment and interest, and we probably won’t have long to wait before Old Man Winter surprises us with something different for the upcoming year of 2012. Bob Grigg is the town historian in Colebrook.