Dear Tom,
I received an email showing people walking on a frozen Niagara Falls in 1911. Is that real, and if so how cold was it?
George Koziol, Chicago
Dear George,
Those photos have been making the rounds for many years. While not commenting on their validity but only on the weather, they were probably not taken in 1911 but in late January or early February 1912 when severe cold gripped the Great Lakes region. Weather records indicate that January 1912 was the coldest January on record to date in the Lakes region, not only in terms of average temperature but in consecutive days of below zero weather. Buffalo recorded only five days with highs above freezing during all of January. Intense cold continued in early February, and that six-week period ranked as one of the coldest on record at that time. Buffalo did not climb above freezing from Jan. 30-Feb. 16 and dropped to 13 below zero on Feb. 10.
I received an email showing people walking on a frozen Niagara Falls in 1911. Is that real, and if so how cold was it?
George Koziol, Chicago
Dear George,
Those photos have been making the rounds for many years. While not commenting on their validity but only on the weather, they were probably not taken in 1911 but in late January or early February 1912 when severe cold gripped the Great Lakes region. Weather records indicate that January 1912 was the coldest January on record to date in the Lakes region, not only in terms of average temperature but in consecutive days of below zero weather. Buffalo recorded only five days with highs above freezing during all of January. Intense cold continued in early February, and that six-week period ranked as one of the coldest on record at that time. Buffalo did not climb above freezing from Jan. 30-Feb. 16 and dropped to 13 below zero on Feb. 10.
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