December 8 Weather History

...1876... The term "blizzard" was first employed in the Monthly Weather Review.

...1892... A tremendous ice fall occurred at Gay Hill TX. Ice averaged four to six inches in diameter.

...1906... The morning low temperature dipped to 4 degrees at Newport, Rhode Island, breaking the record of 8 degrees set in 1902.

...1938... The temperature at La Mesa CA soared to 108 degrees to set a U.S. record for the month of December.

...1963... Lightning caused the crash of a jet airliner killing 81 persons at Elkton MD.

...1971... 6.8 inches of snow fell at Tucson, Arizona for the city's biggest snowstorm on record.

...1987... A cold front crossing the northwestern U.S. continued to produce high winds along the coast, and heavy snow blanketed parts of the western U.S. Snowfall totals in the mountains of western Nevada ranged up to 18 inches at Heavenly Valley, and near the Boreal Ski Resort, and winds at Reno NV gusted to 56 mph. Thunderstorms over southern Florida deluged the Florida Keys with up to five inches of rain. Strong winds, gusting to 48 mph at Gage OK, ushered wintry weather into the Central High Plains. Goodland KS, which one day earlier was 63 degrees, was blanketed with two inches of snow.

...1988... Santa Ana winds buffeted southern California, with gusts to 92 mph reported at Laguna Peak. The high winds unroofed buildings, and downed trees and power lines, igniting five major fires, and numerous smaller ones. Damage was estimated at 15 to 20 million dollars.

...1989... A winter storm spread snow and freezing rain across much of the Atlantic Coast Region, from Georgia to New Jersey. Snowfall totals ranged up to seven inches, at Stanton VA and Tobacco MD. Up to six inches of snow blanketed the mountains of northern Georgia. More than one hundred auto accidents were reported in Gwinnett County GA.

...1991... Unusually strong thunderstorms for the time of the year raced across central Illinois during the afternoon hours. A tornado (F0) touched down near McLean, heavily damaging a mobile home and a small manufacturing plant. Baseball size hail fell at Manito and Tremont. Tennis ball size hail caused extensive damage to numerous automobiles and building windows at Petersburg.

...1996... The same coastal storm the dumped heavy snow over central and northern New England produced 3 inches of rain at the Blue Hill Observatory in Milton, Massachusetts. This pushed its yearly rainfall to 65.77 inches. This set a new record for yearly rainfall for a site that has kept records at a relatively unchanged climatological location for 110 years. The old record was 65.51 inches set in 1972 (this new record was broken only two years later, in 1998).

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