WEATHER OF THE THIRTIES

The diary kept by Maurie Matzen, my mother's cousin who was more like a brother, for the years 1932 through 1936 were the typical activities of a young farmer, just married and starting a family in the Depression. Weather meant a lot, so I looked up the weather for a few of those years for Genoa.

 

For those of us who knew Maurie, such a gentle "splendid" man, this diary is fascinating and gives us a wonderful insight into those days. 

I selected Genoa because it was fairly close, it has kept records for many years, partly due to its founding in 1857 and its role regarding the Indian reservation of Nance county, and because my high school teacher, George Umbarger has kept the records there for more than 50 years.

He told me that the records for the Genoa weather station are second only to Omaha in longevity.

Anyway, here are some of the highlights:

Year	Highest Temperature	Lowest Temperature	Heating Degree Days	Cooling Degree Days	Annual Precipitation	Snowfall (inches)
1932	102	-22	5280	1171	29.88	37
1933	107	-23	5023	1181	18.31	10.5
1934	111	-14	5570	1727	15.74	27
1935	105	-13	5831	1199	22.51	16.4
2010	98	-22	6417	1071	26.97	20
2011	101	-14	6364	1005	25.93	53.6
2012	103	-10	5296	1285	15.19	26.3

A note about Heating Degree Days and Cooling Degree Days. Pretty simple calculation designed to allow utilities to estimate the requirements to heat and cool buildings. It is based on the temperature of 65 degrees, and it is simple--add the high and low temperature, divide by two to get the average and subtract from 65. If the high is 60 and the low is 40, the average is 50 and the heating degree days equals 15. It is the best estimate of how hot or cold a day, a month or a year was.

Observations

I always heard stories of how hot and how cold the "Thirties" were. According to the weather statistics, they are not that different from recent years in Genoa, Nebraska, except that recent years have been a bit colder and 1934 was pretty darn hot!! And dry, with only 15.74 inches of rain. The 2011 year had a lot of snow, and there were stories about how much snow there was in the Thirties, too. Summers today are quite a bit cooler, too.

This is by no means a statistically significant observation, but it is interesting in light of all the press coverage of global warming that the recent years have been so much colder than the "old days." When we talk geological time, though, it is insignificant.

Still, the recent years were 11.1% colder in the winter and 17.8% cooler in the summer than the Thirties, a not-insignificant difference. We should be careful about anecdotal information.

Summary

Several things we can't really measure from the information we have here that are terribly significant in measuring the impact of the environment on the people and economy of the time:

·         Wind -- I am sure that somewhere there is a measure of the wind velocity and the hours of that speed, a common indication, but I don't have it. The Great Plains of the 19th and early 20th century were windy, and they are to this day, but with the advent of trees, a novel commodity until the late 20th century, the wind was more of a factor. The diary talks of dust storms and those are virtually non-existent in that part of the country now. 

·         Farming Practices -- One reason the dust storms have diminished is the way farmers prepare and tend the soil of their farms. I remember hearing as a child about the "modern" way, minimum tillage. That is now the standard, and it conserves the moisture in the soil and exposes the soil to much less wind and rain erosion. It is my understanding that without some of the chemical control of bugs, minimum tillage would not be feasible.

·         Modern outerwear -- I remember being really, really cold a lot of the time. Now, it just isn't necessary.

·         Air conditioning -- In homes and vehicles. We did not have air conditioning in the farm house, nor in the milk barn. Couple 100 degree summer weather of an afternoon with an enclosed barn with a bunch of large, hot animals and it was warm. Had quite an odor, too! Tractors had umbrellas, maybe, and the A/C in the car was usually shut off because someone was smoking and it reduced the mileage so much. I think our first one with air conditioning was a 1960 Ford that would die at idle if the A/C was on.

I think it is so ironic that in this little sample, it is completely upside down from the global warming that we hear so much about. Wouldn't be surprised that Genoa has just not gotten the politically correct word.