This week in weather and science history

Here is a brief look at a few of the events in the first week of February. This history throwback looks at a major blizzard, a tornado, and the day the music died.

On this day in 1950, Seattle recorded its coldest temperature reading ever when the overnight low dropped to zero degrees. In comparison, the Emerald City’s coldest day is usually in late December and the average low on January 31 is about 38 degrees.

Winter can produce severe storms across the South as cold fronts dive deep across the U.S. On February 1, 1955, a tornado rolled across northeastern Mississippi, killing 20 and injuring 141 others. Most of the deaths occurred at a rural school.

Although today is Groundhog Day, other historic weather events occurred on this day.

In 1870, a Wisconsin congressman introduced a joint resolution to authorize the Secretary of War to begin taking weather observations at military stations. It would pass the Senate two days later and President Grant signed it into law. This would establish the nation’s first weather service.

In the early hours of February 3, 1959, “the music died” for an early generation of Rock and Roll.

Six miles northwest of Mason City, Iowa, in snow and limited visibility, a plane carrying the plane’s pilot and singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson to Minnesota crashed. All aboard were killed.

The plane crash and the musical loss would be immortalized as the “The Day the Music Died” in Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie.”

Two days before the Super Bowl, Dallas was hit by a snow and ice storm on this day in 2011. Upwards of six inches of snow fell across northern Texas while snow and ice accumulated at the domed Cowboy’s Stadium. Snow fell off the roof, injuring six people.

The snow and ice melted in time for the Super Bowl on February 6th.

Time to give your favorite meteorologist a gift, or at least a thank you. Today is National Meteorologist Day to commemorate the birth of John Jeffries on this day in 1745.

Jefferies was one of the first people to take consistent weather observations in Boston before the American Revolution and was the first person to take a weather observation from a balloon over London, England, in 1784.

On this day in 2010, a crippling nor’easter hit the Mid-Atlantic. Nicknamed “Snowmageddon” by Washington media, prolonged heavy snow hit the highly populated I-95 corridor from North Carolina to northern New Jersey. While New York City only received a trace of snow, several feet of snow were common throughout the Washington, D.C., area, Mid-Atlantic and Delaware Valley. Washington Dulles Airport recorded 32.5 inches while Philadelphia received 28.5 inches and Atlantic City was hit with 18.2 inches.

This was the second of three major winter storms that would hit the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast that winter.