On This Day in 1966: Historic Blizzard Sweeps N. Plains | WeatherBug
Main Menu
Responsive menu icon

On This Day in 1966: Historic Blizzard Sweeps N. Plains

March 5, 2021
By WeatherBug's Chris Sayles
Fifty-five years ago this week, a powerful blizzard struck the Dakotas, leading to a mass killing of livestock and producing four-story high snowdrifts. The wintry weather started on March 2, 1966, but wouldn't relent for three days.

Although not an unusual track for winter storms, this particular one developed from an area of low pressure exiting the Front Range in Colorado. This northeastward track gave it open access to a warm flow of Gulf of Mexico moisture and cold, Canadian air, which would help make the storm particularly dangerous.

The first city to be struck by the storm was Rapid City, S.D., where freezing rain glazed the roads and nearby farmland. Due to the ice coating the bodies of the young calves and lambs, many thousands of livestock were unable to reach shelter and ultimately lost as the storm changed into a raging blizzard. The storm continued to pound the Missouri Valley and Dakotas, dropping snow mercilessly on Grand Forks, N.D.

On March 4 alone, Grand Forks recorded 17 inches of snow, a single-day record that stands to this day. By the time it was over, the northeastern North Dakota city stood at nearly two-and-a-half feet of snow. This was in line with their neighbors throughout the Dakotas, which also saw accumulations of 20 to 30 inches that week. As if the snow alone wasn't bad enough, winds gusted up to 50 mph across the Dakotas, with a few spots reporting gusts as high as 70 mph. This made for blinding conditions, and travel was near-impossible. In some regions, the winds were so powerful that snow mounds or snow drifts reached heights up to 40 feet high. The Arctic blast that followed the storm brought temperatures below zero, which kept the snow locked in place. 

Damages from the storm reached $12 million (1966 dollars, equivalent to nearly $100 million in 2021), and eighteen lives were lost from South Dakota to Minnesota. 

Source(s): NOAA, National Weather Service

Story Image: Standing tall on North Dakota snow. A March blizzard nearly buried utility poles on March 9, 1966. (NOAA/Mr. Bill Koch, North Dakota State Highway Dept/Wikipedia Commons)