OPINION: HOLY COW! HISTORY: 1936's big chill

Temperatures plunge. Ice everywhere. Transportation is frozen in its tracks. An Arctic Armageddon.

Winter 2026, right? Think again. The 6 is correct, but the other three digits are off. Because this month is the 90th anniversary of the coldest February on record in the lower 48 states, the winter of 1936.

How cold was it, you ask? Cold enough that a meteorological phenomenon occurred that hasn’t happened in the 90 winters since. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Winter started out pretty much the same as usual in the most unusual of times, known as the Great Depression. The weather had been contrary in recent years. For instance, extreme drought and strong winds had combined two years earlier to create the Dust Bowl, leaving 500,000 people homeless and ultimately displacing 3.5 million across Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and beyond. After that, Mother Nature took a breather.

Then, in February 1936, Americans discovered just how “bad” bad weather could be.

The month started off cold. And grew colder. And colder still. Across the country, the mercury in thermometers kept dropping.

Just how bad was it? The temperature dropped to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit in North Dakota on Feb. 15, a state record that stands to this day. (And that’s not wind chill, mind you; it was the actual temperature.) Langdon, N.D., stayed below zero for 41 consecutive days.

Then there were the blizzards. Note the plural, because they came back-to-back, one right after the other. They roared out of the Great Plains and raged all the way into upper New England, coating that region with nearly 3 feet of snow. Drifts of 10-15 feet were reported in some rural areas.

In an era when most American products were moved by rail, train travel came to a standstill. Roadways were too snowy for trucks; for the very vehicles that did manage to drive, the brutal, brittle air risked ruining engines. The result was what would today be called “supply chain interruptions.” Cities such as Boston, Chicago and Cleveland were paralyzed.

The toll was especially hard on livestock. Countless horses, cattle, sheep and pigs died of exposure, a serious blow to the bottom line of farmers already struggling with low prices due to the lingering Depression.

Perhaps nature’s greatest show of force came in St. Louis, where the Mississippi River froze over. That’s right: The Mighty Mississip, Big Muddy, Old Man River, the Father of Waters, was turned into a gigantic ice cube nearly one mile wide. Brave souls ditched landmark Eads Bridge in Missouri and crossed to East St. Louis, Ill., on foot over the ice.

Although the Mississippi had frozen over before, it was an exceedingly rare occurrence. And it hasn’t happened again in the 90 years since, either.

Estimates of the number of deaths from the extreme weather event vary. It was certainly in the hundreds. Iowa alone reported 20 confirmed fatalities.

Still, February 1936’s 25.2 degree average temperature in the United States still holds the record as the coldest February ever. (The worst month of all was January 1977’s 21.9 degree average.)

Horrific as that was, nature wasn’t finished inflicting misery on Americans that year. Just five months later, the mercury swung in the opposite direction. A ferocious heat wave baked much of the United States in July 1936, triggering a second round of the Dust Bowl and claiming the lives of more than 5,000 people.

There is much conversation these days about climate change and how traditional weather patterns are changing. To which 1936 could easily snicker and say, “Hold my beer!”

J. Mark Powell is a former television journalist. His nonfiction book “Witness to War: The Story of the Civil War Told by Those Living Through It” is available at jmarkpowell.com.