The recent Tōhoku earthquake and resulting tsunami on Friday March 11, 2011 was devastating with massive loss of life and property, putting thousands of people out of their homes in an instant.
This made me think back to the last giant disastrous earthquake that happened in San Francisco--the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the city through a combination of ground shaking and subsequent ill-planned attempts to stop the fires that were started. Much of the city was leveled, then much of it burned, leaving at least 250,000 people homeless.
As you know, San Francisco can be a lovely place, but it can also be cold, windy and foggy. While it never really snows, it can be a very unpleasant place to be camping without supplies while the city is being restored.
It's pretty easy to lookup the weather in the Tōhoku region for the period immediately after the earthquake. But today's question is a bit more difficult than that:
What was the weather like in San Francisco on the day of the 1906 earthquake AND for the next 7 days afterwards?
This gets to be slightly tricky as all of the communications infrastructure also went down with the earthquake. So, how will you find out what the weather was? Was it cold and foggy? Was it raining? How miserable was it for the survivors?
Caution: When I was searching for the answer to this, I kept getting pulled into remarkable and amazing stories about the earthquake. You might too. This search took me hours longer than this should have because it was a fascinating topic. Careful that you don't spend too many hours researching this amazing time in California history.
Search on!
This made me think back to the last giant disastrous earthquake that happened in San Francisco--the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the city through a combination of ground shaking and subsequent ill-planned attempts to stop the fires that were started. Much of the city was leveled, then much of it burned, leaving at least 250,000 people homeless.
As you know, San Francisco can be a lovely place, but it can also be cold, windy and foggy. While it never really snows, it can be a very unpleasant place to be camping without supplies while the city is being restored.
It's pretty easy to lookup the weather in the Tōhoku region for the period immediately after the earthquake. But today's question is a bit more difficult than that:
What was the weather like in San Francisco on the day of the 1906 earthquake AND for the next 7 days afterwards?
Two views of downtown San Francisco after the earthquake and fires of 1906.
What was the weather like if you were homeless after this earthquake?
(Both photos by George Lawrence, taken by kite photography, 1906.)
What was the weather like if you were homeless after this earthquake?
(Both photos by George Lawrence, taken by kite photography, 1906.)
This gets to be slightly tricky as all of the communications infrastructure also went down with the earthquake. So, how will you find out what the weather was? Was it cold and foggy? Was it raining? How miserable was it for the survivors?
Caution: When I was searching for the answer to this, I kept getting pulled into remarkable and amazing stories about the earthquake. You might too. This search took me hours longer than this should have because it was a fascinating topic. Careful that you don't spend too many hours researching this amazing time in California history.
Be sure to include a quick description of HOW you found the answer, WHAT resources you used, and HOW LONG did it take you to find the answer.
Search on!
About a minute. Searching
ReplyDeleteweather after San Francisco earthquake
in Google Books got a detailed description on page 52 of The great earthquake and firestorms of 1906: how San Francisco nearly ...
By Philip L. Fradkin.
Sorry, Google Books, doesn't allow cutting and pasting the quote (a most annoying misfeature) and I'm too lazy to retype it. They also annoyingly truncate long titles, making citation more difficult than it ought to be.
I started at 11:38 (eastern)
ReplyDeletesearch on "San Francisco weather"
led to
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/sfd_sjc_climate/sfd/SFD_CLIMATE3.php
which led to Alexander McAdie
search on Mcadie and weather, 3rd link on the results page led to Virtual Musem of SF
http://www.sfmuseum.org/press/clips13.html
Article made mention of new weather bureau location at 3014 Clay street
Searched on 3014 Clay street And Weather Bureau
Which led to - > http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/mcadie.php
Which contained images of the SF weather for Highs, Lows, and Precipitation.
"Below are links to images from the 1871-1911 San Francisco climate book showing what the weather was during the time of the Earthquake and Fire."
Daily High
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/mtr/1906_max_temperature.jpg
Daily Low
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/mtr/1906_min_temperature.jpg
Precipitation
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/mtr/1906_rainfall.jpg
April 18, L51 H62
April 19 no data
April 20 no data
April 21 Lnodata H72
April 22 L49 H74
April 23 L49 H60 Heavy Showers.51 inches of rain
April 24 L48 H60 .14 inches of rain, Barometer rising prospects bright for pleasant weather.
April 25 L45 H62
PS. It took me about 10 minutes to find the information, and another 10 to organize it. I am still looking at articles about the earthquake in general; Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason it reminded me of a research I did some time ago about the Boston Molasses Flood in 1919.
I didn’t know the date of the earthquake so started by searching Google for [san francisco earthquake 1906] to get the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake and find that it happened on April 18, 1906. I knew that Wolfram Alpha returns some historical weather data so went there to search for [San Francisco weather April 18, 1906] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=San+Francisco+weather+April+18%2C+1906 but it doesn’t go back that far.
ReplyDeleteI then went to Google Books and searched for [San Francisco weather "April 18, 1906"] then tried to narrow to magazines (I thought newspapers were there too but was wrong.) Headed over to Google News and tried [San Francisco newspaper 1906 "april 19"] to find a weather report. Nothing there that struck me as useful.
Back to Google to search for [weather history 1906] to try to find a site for historical weather data. Looked at http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/027.html#27.6.3
Again, I didn’t find anything that gave me what I was looking for. I jumped over to the Library of Congress and searched for [weather san francisco 1906]. I picked one halfway down the page. Microsoft Word - 1December2006TALCover1252007.doc I can’t remember why I chose it but in the document I searched for [earthquake]. I found references to the “newly chartered Red Cross”.
At the Red Cross site I searched for [earthquake 1906] and got http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/rco_search?q=1906+earthquake&submit=GO
I picked a lesson plan for grades k-2 just see what they talked about (I work in an elementary school.) The lesson plan references The Virtual Museum of San Francisco http://www.sfmuseum.org/
Searching there for [weather 1906] http://www.sfmuseum.org/searchresults.html?cx=017537146380771376400%3Apkfl8lk2x8k&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=weather+1906&sa=Search produces articles, newspaper clippings and eyewitness accounts.
From this one http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/ew20.html I would say it was unusually warm (heat wave) and from this one dated April 24, 1906 http://www.sfmuseum.net/press/clips13.html I would say they also experienced rain within the week following the earthquake.
Forgot about how long it took me. I think all of that was in a span of about 20 minutes.
ReplyDeletewrh.noaa.gov/mtr/sfd_sjc_climate/sfd/SFD_CLIMATE3.php
ReplyDelete"The ninth observation site, at the Mills Building, was destroyed by the earthquake and fire on April 18, 1906, and observations were taken at a private residence about 2 miles to the west until October 1, 1906. There is a discrepancy in the records (Null, 1978; Pericht 1988) as to whether observations were taken between April 18 and May 1, 1906. However, records complied by McAdie (1906) indicate rainfall for San Francisco on several dates during that period. This corresponds to data available at several other nearby sites during the same period, and has been incorporated into this research."
Is this the answer?
Answer:
ReplyDelete2009 Temp. (°F) Dew Point (°F) Humidity (%) Sea Level Press. (in) Visibility (mi) Wind (mph) Precip. (in) Events
Apr high avg low high avg low high avg low high avg low high avg low high avg high sum
12 61 56 50 49 48 46 93 77 60 30.29 30.25 30.22 10 10 10 32 18 39 0.00
13 61 55 48 50 45 40 93 72 51 30.22 30.09 29.98 10 10 10 37 20 44 0.00
14 54 50 45 39 35 32 71 58 45 30.00 29.97 29.93 10 10 10 49 27 60 0.00
15 57 49 41 41 37 33 82 65 47 30.23 30.11 30.01 10 10 10 40 21 48 0.00
16 59 52 46 43 42 41 87 73 56 30.30 30.27 30.23 10 10 10 29 16 38 0.00
17 68 57 46 50 46 42 100 71 42 30.29 30.23 30.16 10 10 10 30 12 35 0.00
18 71 59 47 54 48 45 100 74 47 30.17 30.13 30.06 10 7 0 20 8 24 0.00 Fog
How:
Searched Google for 1906 san francisco earthquake - first result had the date of April 18th, 2009 (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1906/18april/index.php)
Then searched Google for weather history, used the first result (which I had remembered from previous usage) to gather the answer. (http://www.wunderground.com/history/).
If the answer isn't readily readable, you can find it at http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSFO/2009/4/18/WeeklyHistory.html
Also, it took about 3 minutes to find (sorry for not including in the original comment!).
ReplyDeleteI found part of the answer by googling "weather april 18 1906". The 7th link down was a Google Book link for "Monthly weather review". WIthin the pages of the book are historical records for the day in question with a specific account of the days weather. It details the weather for the 18th as clear and pleasant with a high that was not unusual for the time. the report continues to say that records were lost for the 19th and do not continue again until noon on the 20th.
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.com/books?id=mMBGAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PA505&ots=DaKkg7Fz2t&dq=weather%20april%2018%201906&pg=PA505#v=onepage&q=weather%20april%2018%201906&f=false
This part took me about 15 minutes. I'm still working on the rest.
Started off looking at nytimes archives with little effect. Then looked for sources of historical weather. NOAA has this and more. Here's SF's weather for the week after the earthquake from a weather station downtown (station number 23272). One caveat: The station is missing data for 4/20.
ReplyDelete4/18: Scattered clouds, light winds from the west, a high of 63 and a low of 50.
4/19: Clear with moderate winds (~20 mph) from the west, high of 62, low of 51.
4/21: Clear skies with light winds from the west, high of 59 and low of 53.
4/22: Scattered clouds with light winds from the west. High of 74 and low of 49.
4/23: Overcast skies with wind from the SW, high of 70, low of 49.
4/24: Broken clouds with light winds from the NW, high of 60, low of 48.
4/25: Overcast skies with variable direction winds, high of 60, low of 45.
I found part of the answer by googling "weather april 18 1906". The 7th link down was a Google Book link for "Monthly weather review". WIthin the pages of the book are historical records for the day in question with a specific account of the days weather. It details the weather for the 18th as clear and pleasant with a high that was not unusual for the time. the report continues to say that records were lost for the 19th and do not continue again until noon on the 20th.
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.com/books?id=mMBGAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PA505&ots=DaKkg7Fz2t&dq=weather%20april%2018%201906&pg=PA505#v=onepage&q=weather%20april%2018%201906&f=false
This part took me about 15 minutes.
I then continued the search and found the following link that shows the weather for San Francisco for the entire month of April, but again the 19th, and 20th are missing data.
http://books.google.com/books?id=aLxGAQAAIAAJ&dq=weather%20april%201906%20san%20francisco&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q=weather%20april%201906%20san%20francisco&f=false
18th - high 62 low 50
19th -
20th -
21 - high 72 low no data
22 - high 74 low 49
23 - high 60 low 49
24 - high 60 low 43
25 - high 67 low 45
I continued by searching Google Books for " weather april 19 1906" and found documents from Theodore Roosevelt's archives that included military letters/telegrams regarding the earthquake. These letters included weather information for the dates of the 19th and 20th. In these letters the weather is depicted as being "fine and warm" and goes on to explain that San Franciscans would not be suffering from the cold.
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/979.pdf
Thus, according to these records, the weather on the day of the earthquake and the following 7 days was was not extreme or abnormal and seems to have been fairly pleasant, at least for San Francisco.
In all, search time took just over an hour.
There is a Special Section of the Bulletin of Seismological of America dedicated to the 1906 earthquake (BSSA, April 2008) that contains a lot of info.
ReplyDeleteOne paper specifically, points to weather info (Dengler, 2008):
"The original weather reports are kept at the Eureka office of the National Weather Service. The Humboldt Historical Society, the Clarke Museum in Eureka, and the Ferndale Museum have collected letters, photographs, and other memorabilia from 1906. Additional historic materials have been collected in the Humboldt Room at Humboldt State University’s library."
Lori A. Dengler (2008), "The 1906 earthquake on California's north coast", Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 98, no. 2, pp.918-930, Apr 2008
There is a Special Section of the Bulletin of Seismological of America dedicated to the 1906 earthquake (BSSA, April 2008) that contains a lot of info.
ReplyDeleteOne paper specifically, points to weather info (Dengler, 2008):
"The original weather reports are kept at the Eureka office of the National Weather Service. The Humboldt Historical Society, the Clarke Museum in Eureka, and the Ferndale Museum have collected letters, photographs, and other memorabilia from 1906. Additional historic materials have been collected in the Humboldt Room at Humboldt State University’s library."
Lori A. Dengler (2008), "The 1906 earthquake on California's north coast", Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 98, no. 2, pp.918-930, Apr 2008
There is a Special Section of the Bulletin of Seismological of America dedicated to the 1906 earthquake (BSSA, April 2008) that contains a lot of info.
ReplyDeleteOne paper specifically, points to weather info (Dengler, 2008):
"The original weather reports are kept at the Eureka office of the National Weather Service. The Humboldt Historical Society, the Clarke Museum in Eureka, and the Ferndale Museum have collected letters, photographs, and other memorabilia from 1906. Additional historic materials have been collected in the Humboldt Room at Humboldt State University’s library."
Lori A. Dengler (2008), "The 1906 earthquake on California's north coast", Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 98, no. 2, pp.918-930, Apr 2008
The most important aspect of the weather for the 7 days following the quake was wind. Shifting winds fed the fires that were responsible for 80% of the damage from the catastrophe. The news archive reveals a slew of articles about the wind and its impact on these fires in the week following the quake:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=san+francisco+earthquake&oq=san+francisco+earthquake&aq=f&aqi=d1d-o1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=12184l20362l0l21603l26l24l1l16l17l0l180l767l4.3l7l0#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&gl=us&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A1906%2Ccd_max%3A1906&tbm=nws&source=hp&q=san+francisco+earthquake+wind&pbx=1&oq=san+francisco+earthquake+wind&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=62559l63880l0l64183l5l5l0l0l0l0l233l724l2.1.2l5l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=a195e194760ed091&biw=1169&bih=698
I used some similar techniques and sites as other commentors above.
ReplyDeleteI started with Wikipedia to get the exact date.
I then spent a bit of time stumbling around the timeline of the earthquake on the Virtual Museum of San Francisco, which gave me a few blind leads, including trying to track down records of the USS Chicago. I also tried a few area newspaper archives, but couldn't find anything that went farther back than the late 1970s.
Finally, I googled "San Francisco Weather April 1906" and arrived at the NOAA site (and thought to myself, "duh!!!") mentioned above: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/sfd_sjc_climate/sfd/SFD_CLIMATE3.php
Relevant passage:
There is a discrepancy in the records (Null, 1978; Pericht 1988) as to whether observations were taken between April 18 and May 1, 1906. However, records complied by McAdie (1906) indicate rainfall for San Francisco on several dates during that period. This corresponds to data available at several other nearby sites during the same period, and has been incorporated into this research.
Total research time: approx 10 minutes.
Wow, you guys did great! I spent hours on weather sites, government atmospheric records, San Francisco newspapers, etc., etc., and found NOTHING. Never thought of Google Books, and somehow never stumbled onto NOAA.
ReplyDeleteTwo questions:
Some findings indicate nasty rain on April 23, others suggest weather was mild throughout. What do you think is the cause of this discrepancy?
The post by "Me"...do you realize all your posted data (and the link you provide) are for April 2009?