With images and stories of Hurricane Sandy fresh in our minds, I became curious if Greeley and Weld County had ever faced a similar situation in our history. During my investigations, I came upon an equally destructive weather event that hit northern Colorado nearly 64 years ago. The Blizzard of 1949 stranded thousands of people throughout northern Colorado, killed large numbers of livestock and farm animals and, by the time it was over, left 18 people dead.
The blizzard seemed to come out of nowhere. Weather forecasts for northern Colorado on Jan. 2, 1949, called for “possible” light snow flurries, something that hardly goes noticed in the middle of a Colorado winter. However, what happened that day was anything but light.
A large winter weather system, moving down from the north, struck northern Colorado at about 5 p.m. By most accounts the wind and blowing snow almost instantly created white-out conditions, making travel by automobile, or even on foot, impossible. In a few short hours even railroad traffic was brought to a standstill.
The quick and heavy snowfall, combined with temperatures that plunged below zero, made conditions so bad that it took weeks for rail lines to fully re-open. In some places snowdrifts more than 15 feet high had to be cleared from the rail lines, causing some plowing trains to derail in the process.
For northern Colorado’s farms and ranches, the blizzard would mean certain death for scores of cattle, sheep and other farm animals. These herds in Weld County lost nearly 25 percent of their numbers. Many animals that survived the blizzard were left blinded or crippled by the extreme cold, further reducing the quality of the yields that were expected that spring.
To the north of Greeley, hundreds of travelers would seek shelter in the small towns of Rockport, Lone Tree, and Nunn. Not all would be so lucky, however. Tragedy struck just four miles northeast of Rockport where days after the storm a family of four was found frozen to death just a mile from their home after abandoning their vehicle and attempting to make their way home on foot.
Though the toll of the storm was massive, the incredible efforts put forth by rescue crews to locate stranded travelers and isolated and desperate rural families were commendable. Civil Air Patrol missions flew out of Lowry Air Force Base to supply isolated families with food and medicine. Missions were flown to drop hay and feed to livestock and farm animals, and some animals that were thought to be dead were later found alive after the snow-packed barns they took shelter in began to thaw.
There has not been a storm like the Blizzard of 1949 in all of the years since. It was truly the storm of the past century. With winter steadily approaching again for the plains of northern Colorado, perhaps it is only a matter of time before we face a storm like this in our century.
Adam Lingo is doing work-study at the City of Greeley Museums.