January 20 Weather History

...1864... A large tornado struck the Brandon and Mount Vernon areas in central Ohio.

...1937... 1.77 inches of rain fell at Washington, DC, making it the wettest Inaugural Day of record. Temperatures were only in the 30s as Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in for his second term. -The record low temperature for the state of California was set at Boca when the thermometer dropped to 45 degrees below zero.

...1943... Strange vertical antics took place in the Black Hills of South Dakota. While the temperature at Deadwood was a frigid 16 degrees below zero, the town of Lead, just a mile and a half away, but 600 feet higher in elevation, reported a balmy 52 degree reading.

...1954... The temperature at Rogers Pass MT plunged to 70 degrees below zero to establish a new record for the continental U.S.

...1957... The high barometric pressure record was broken at Newport, Rhode Island when the mercury rose to 30.89 inches, breaking the record of 30.62 inches set back in 1946.

...1961... The "Kennedy Inaugural Snowstorm" belted the Mid Atlantic area and New England. Up to 29 inches of snow fell in northern New Jersey and southeastern New York. Areas north and west of Boston, Massachusetts received over two feet.  Newport, Rhode Island received 10.2 inches and recorded a wind gust of 50 mph.  This was the second of three major snowstorms during the 1960-61 winter season in the northeastern U.S.

...1964.. The barometric pressure fell to 28.93 inches at Newport, Rhode Island, breaking the record of 29.12 inches, set in 1961.

...1971... At Newport, Rhode Island the temperature fell to 1 degree below zero, breaking the record of 2 degrees set in 1957. The wind chill that day fell to 21 degrees below zero.

...1978... A paralyzing "Nor'easter" produced a record 21 inches of snow at Boston, 10.4 inches of snow at Newport, Rhode Island (breaking the record of 10.2 inches set in 1961) along with a wind gust of 53 miles per hour, and one to two feet of snow in Pennsylvania. Winds along the coast of Connecticut gusted to 70 mph.

...1987... Gale force winds lingered along the northern Atlantic coast in the wake of a holiday weekend storm. High winds along the eastern slopes of the Northern Rockies gusted to 67 mph at Livingston MT, and high winds in southern California gusted to 70 mph near San Bernardino.

...1988... A storm in the Upper Midwest produced heavy snow and gale force winds. Up to 27.5 inches of snow was reported along the Lake Superior shoreline of Michigan, with 22 inches at Marquette.

...1989... The temperature in the Washington D.C. area warmed into the lower 50s for the Presidential Inauguration during the late morning hours, before gusty northwest winds ushered in colder air that afternoon.

...1990... While heavy thunderstorm rains drenched the Central Gulf Coast States, with 4.23 inches reported at Centreville AL in 24 hours, unseasonably warm weather continued across Florida. Five cities in Florida reported record high temperatures for the date. Tampa FL equaled their record high for January of 85 degrees.

...1993... A fast moving 980 millibars low produced high winds in the Pacific Northwest. A wind gust to 64 mph occurred at the Seatac Airport in Seattle, Washington -- the second highest highest wind gust ever recorded at this location. Wind gusts neared 100 mph at the mouth of the Columbia River. Over 750,000 people in Puget Sound lost power. Damage was severe, with 79 homes destroyed and 581 suffering major damage. In Oregon, wind gusts hit 89 mph at Netarts and 86 mph at Cape Blanco. -In the southern U.S., train echo thunderstorms drenched Lafayette and Baton Rouge, Louisiana with 10.83 and 9.02 inches of rain in 24 hours, respectively.

...1994... Relentless lake effect snow squalls dumped nearly 60 inches of snow at Adams, New York in only 17 hours. The three day snowfall total in the town exceeded 100 inches -- one of the greatest lake effect snowfall totals ever recorded. -Frigid conditions persisted over the northeastern U.S. Rangeley, Maine reported 45 degrees below zero for a morning low for the cold spot in the nation. First Connecticut Lake, New Hampshire checked in with a frigid 44 degrees below zero. Both Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio completed their longest stretch of subzero readings on record, with 52 and 56 consecutive hours, respectively

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