The Day the Mercury Stayed Below Zero in New York City

By: William Sutherland
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:36
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While New York City temperatures have dropped lower than the -12°F reading at midnight January 10th-11th, 1859, falling to
-16°F in 1789 and -15°F in 1835 and 1934, January 10th, 1859 is known as New York City’s coldest day ever. On that day, the city’s temperature never rose above zero. Per Christopher C. Burt, who studied meteorology and wrote “Extreme Weather,” it “was probably the only day in New York city history when the temperature failed to rise above zero degrees.”[1]

When midnight, Monday, January 10th, 1859 arrived, the temperature in New York City sat around -1° to -3°F exacerbated by strong winds that kicked up the fresh snow cover that had been deposited two days before. While an exact temperature reading is not known since thermometers of the era “were not self-registering – recording ‘daily absolute minimum [and] maximum temperatures’” – relying on visual observations “usually three times daily at 7 a.m., 2 p.m., and 9 p.m.,”[2] one can be confident of the midnight estimates for the following reasons:

1. From midnight until the first official reading of –3.7°F at Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn at 7 a.m., the temperature had fallen very little due to scattered clouds and a strong northwest wind that caused thermal advection (friction as it passed over the ground surface).

2. “The cold snap… took … all by surprise, for the change in the weather was… very sudden and very great” despite the fact that its precursor rains had arrived “in the night of Friday (January 7th)” before changing over to snow. By late Saturday (January 8), the temperature had fallen significantly. “The present cold term commenced here… Saturday (January 8th) last, about midnight (Sunday morning, January 9th),” The New York Times wrote. [3]

3. The core of the frigid air mass passed over the New York metro area before reaching New England based on the fact that the coldest part of the air mass reached New York City about 7 hours before Boston (New York City’s low was of -12°F was attained at 12 midnight on January 11th followed by rising temperatures as the cold front retreated into New England. Accordingly Boston’s and other lows across New England were reached at about 7 a.m. before their temperatures also began rising.

4. It is likely that this cold front was preceded by an Alberta clipper based on weather reports that imply a southeast movement [4]:

?Oswego, N.Y., Saturday, Jan. 8 – 6 p.m.: The weather was quite warm here yesterday (January 7th), with rain, until towards the night, when a sudden change took place, the thermometer sinking to zero, and a strong northwest wind springing up. To-day there have been flurries of snow, but not sufficient to bring the sleighs out…

?Watertown, N.Y., Saturday, Jan. 8 – 6 p.m.: Thermometer at zero. No snow.

?Ogdensburg, N.Y., Saturday, Jan. 8 – 6 p.m.: This is the coldest day of the season. The sleighing is good. Thermometer 6°[F] below zero.

New York City’s Sunday afternoon temperature rose to barely above 10°F before falling to near zero as evening arrived. Based on the above scenario, New York City’s 10 p.m. temperature sat at around 1° to 3°F versus Boston’s reading of 10°F – “The weather has been very cold all day. The thermometer at 10 o’clock to-night indicated 10° above zero. The air is still growing colder.”[5] By sunrise Monday morning, Boston’s temperature had fallen to “5° below zero [before recovering to] zero [at 10 a.m. and then falling to –4.5°F at 2 p.m. in nearby Cambridge, MA].”[6] At the same time, nearby areas that were not influenced by a “heat island effect” such as Port Jervis, NY and White Plains, NY recorded 7 a.m. temperatures of -16°F and
-13°F, respectively.

The sharp drop in New York City temperatures was fueled by the approach of the coldest part of the front and the dying winds, leading to perhaps the most remarkable and meteorologically significant day in New York City history. Instead of rising, the temperature fell. The sun was impotent. “The strangest part… was that though the sun was shining brightly the intensity of the cold kept gradually increasing from sunrise until noon.”[7] By 11 a.m. the temperature had fallen to –7.5°F[8] and another one-and-a-half degrees to -9°F by noon.[9]

People suddenly began to discover that their stoves, steam-pipes and registers (openings from which heated air is directed or controlled such as from a fire-place or furnace) did not give any heat, and business men, as they hurried down didn’t know what to make of the icicles which hung from their moustaches like the pendants from a glass chandelier…[10]

To compensate, people wore two and three layers of shirts and “duplicated” other articles of clothing, while 379 homeless persons took refuge in various police stations, “a hundred more than usual,” after “Deputy Superintendent Carpenter [issued] an order that ‘no one applying for lodgings should be turned away until the last standing-room was unoccupied.’” Yet not all were aware of the availability of shelters or chose to go there. Accordingly it was reported that the “number of women with empty baskets haunting kitchen doors, in the hope of filling them with the donations of charity increased… Children, too, are in the streets in multiplied abundance, begging alms… And even old men are to be seen on almost every block looking wistfully in at laundry windows, mutely begging for any work which will provide them with a meal, and consequent liberty to warm themselves at an eating-house fire.”[11]

Yet despite the hardships, only two weather-related crimes were reported. One consisted of a bully who was promptly arrested and sentenced to 30 days in prison after stealing a young boy’s skates and a pair consisting of “a portly gentleman” and a well-dressed youth, identified as John Belden who shoplifted from a fur dealer located at 71 Broadway. While the “portly gentleman” got away, proving “to be remarkably nimble,” Belden was arrested and sent “to the Tombs” (jail).[12]

However, the “most remarkable effects of the cold were seen on the Bay and rivers, where a thick cloud of steam was seen all day, looking as though a thousand boilers were letting their steam escape. The temperature of the air was so much lower than that of the water that the vapor ascended from the surface as though the Gulf Stream with its tepid billow had suddenly made a divergence through Long Island Sound into our harbor.[13]

Then, just as the sun began making inroads, warming New York City to –3.8°F and White Plains, NY to -10°F by 2 p.m., evening approached and with the arrival of night in which conditions were optimal for radiational cooling (clear sky, calm winds, and a decent snow cover mainly the January 3rd-4th blizzard that left “severe drifts” and “more than fourteen inches” of snow[14]) the temperature fell quickly.

During this time, rivers began to freeze as reported by The New York Times: [15]

There was but very little ice in the river during the day, but a plenty was found last night (January 10th), and it will not require many such days as yesterday (January 10th) to put an entire stoppage to the navigation of the Sound.

The docks along the East and North Rivers were frozen, making it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to move vessels lying in them without the aid of steam-tugs. The prospect now is that the steam ice-boats, will soon be required to keep the channel open.

A day later, The New York Times reported:

Although the weather moderated considerably yesterday (January 11th), ice formed rapidly along both shores of the bay, and when the flood tide freed the large mass from Gowanus flats, it was swept through Buttermilk Channel into the East River in immense fields, which, for a time, threatened to entirely obstruct navigation. The ice-boat “Atlantic” made an early start… She started at 5? a.m., and spent about two hours in the work of breaking the large cakes, and opening the channel for lighters and other craft… [and despite being the most powerful boat belonging to the Union Company] it was as much as she could do to move about in the dense ice-floes… The ice formed heavily in all the slips, which were not constantly agitated by the arrival and departure of the ferry-boats through the night. Vessels found it difficult to move in and out of their slips without the aid of steam… [and to] navigate among the large masses [of ice] which were brought down from the North River by the ebb tide.”

At the same time, female passengers displayed constant apprehension that only disappeared when their boat made it safely to shore, the Harbor Police who feared “that Throgg’s Neck [would] become frozen over and put a stop to navigation altogether…” found it impossible to conduct boat patrols and relegated their services to assisting boats stuck in their slips, and fishermen found it “too cold to” pursue their livelihood.[16]

This was followed by another news story that read:[17]

The ice has so impeded Sound navigation that the Norwich[, CT.] and Worcester[, MA.] and the Stonington[, CT.] lines of steamers are withdrawn.

In addition, there were “a large number of cases of suffering by the intense cold”[18] as well as a few fires and six deaths. A stage-coach driver for the 6th and 7th Avenue Broadway line, “Webb” had been found “in a helpless condition… his hands and feet… badly frozen” and had to be carried into a nearby drug store “where stimulants were administered, and he revived” but apparently to no avail since the following day’s New York Times edition wrote – “…a poor stage driver was frozen to death.”[19] A newsboy riding the Fulton ferry was also found in a “helpless” state “with a frozen nose, hands, and feet” by passengers who “took him down to the engine-room [where they] rubbed him until he recovered,” while “a man who had been [left standing] for a time without a blanket [after his horse ran off] was so stiffened by the cold, that he could not move until he had been rubbed down for a long time.”[20]

A dramatic rescue also took place at 1:30 p.m. when Harbor Police officers walking the docks along Catherine and Market Streets heard the screams of Hector McIntosh of Brooklyn who had fallen into the East River. When Officers “Smiley, Garland and Baker” had pulled McIntosh from the icy waters with a piece of rope they grabbed from a nearby boat, “he literally ‘froze to’” it and had to be transported to a nearby station house “on a hand-sled [for warming]. Five minutes more and he would have perished.” [21]

“A slight fire occurred in the billiard saloon attached to the Waverley Restaurant, at the corner of Broadway and Fourth [S]treet. The damage was slight.”[22] At the same time, “a child eighteen months old, whose parents reside at No. 520 Broome [S]treet, was fatally burned [after] his clothes [caught] fire from [a nearby] grate” and a man, “James Gaffney” was “burned to death” when “the small-frame building” where he resided on Eighteenth Street near Eleventh Avenue “was nearly consumed” by fire. Per The New York Times, “the body of Mr. Gaffney was found burned to a crisp.” At the same time, “Anthony Elding [who] drank a quart and a half of gin at a grocery store on Eleventh Avenue, near Forty-third Street… to keep himself warm [became so] stupefied [that he had to be] taken to his residence [where he] died soon afterwards” while a woman identified as “Ann Myers was found intoxicated [in the streets]… and taken to [a holding] cell… where [later] she was found dead.” The sixth fatality involved an unidentified woman who was found dead “from want and exposure” in an unheated tenement on No. 16 Essex-street.[23]

Incredibly though, local politicians found time to propose “a resolution prohibiting the sprinkling of salt, for the purpose of melting snow in the streets!”[24]

“The cold weather continued through the evening and night. The wind died away, but the air was intensely cold,”[25] The Hartford Daily Courant reported. By 9 p.m. New York City’s temperature had fallen to -8°F while the mercury stood at -15°F in White Plains, NY.

By day’s end, the New York City temperature stood at -12° F versus Hartford’s 11 p.m. -12°F and 12 midnight -15°F readings. Afterwards, New York City’s temperature slowly recovered through the early morning hours of January 11th, rising to -3°F by 7 a.m. Yet as New York City’s temperature slowly rose through the night, the coldest part of the arctic air mass drifted into New England bringing unprecedented cold. By the morning, of January 11th, Boston’s temperature stood at -18°F while readings of
-12°F and -45°F were recorded “on Nantucket Island, which lies 20 miles off the coast of Cape Cod” and in Woodstock, Vermont.[26]

Yet it was not until 11 a.m. that New York City’s temperature finally rose above zero captured by The New York Times:[27]

The “inclemency of the elements” continuing without essential abatement until long past midnight, by which time the said citizens were warmly provided for beneath a host of blankets, it was no matter of wonder that they turned out yesterday morning, to their daily avocations, doubly protected with garments, and trebly armed with resolution against the cold. They found the atmosphere moderated, which they attributed to the increase of woolen; they found their fingers and toes untroubled, or nearly so, which was to be accounted for by warmer stockings and gloves; they suffered nothing at all from freezing necks and ears, but the mufflers and fur caps were, in their opinion, the resolvents of that comfort. The fact, however, was that the thermometer was above zero instead of below it… At sunrise… the thermometer stood three degrees below zero; at 9 a.m., one degree below; at 11 two degrees above; at noon the same, after which it began to rise, until the temperature had nothing remarkable about it, beyond that of an ordinary Winter’s day…

As a result, several thousand people of “both sexes” took advantage of the cold and snow to have fun. Some went sleigh riding while others skated “dressed in picturesque costumes” on the frozen lake of Central Park, “shouting merrily in the clear air like the patineurs in [Giacomo] Meyerbeer’s ‘[Le] Proph?te,’ (a grand opera that opened in Paris on April 16, 1849) while the very icicles pendant on the bare trees sparkle[d] with sympathetic pleasure.” At the same time members of local curling clubs also took advantage of the weather to enjoy their sport, a favorite past time of Scotland and Canada, utilizing the ice, a circular-shaped polished stone and “broom.”[28]

After New York City’s temperature had remained below zero for at least 33 hours by conservative estimates, Tuesday, January 11th had an anticlimactic ending after it finally rose above zero and remained there:

All day long, the sky was overcast, and light showers of snow descended at intervals, insufficient to cover the sidewalk, until evening, when a fresh fall began, and made a deposit of about half an inch, with the wind veering round to northeast, presaging a further fall, thermometers then standing at sixteen degrees above zero. The streets, slippery enough before, became much more so after this fall, and many a pedestrian was thrown off his feet, and upright, as he was considered by his associates, detected in backsliding.[29]

Warmth also spread into Boston as recounted in that city’s 7 p.m. weather report: “It has been snowing hard here since 1 o’clock this afternoon. The weather is not near as cold as it was [earlier].”[30]

A summary of January 10, 1859’s historic day’s temperature readings for New York City is illustrated below:

New York City Temperatures
Monday, January 10, 1859
Max. –1.5° Min. –12.0° Mean: -6.75°

12 a.m.: -1.5 (i)

4 a.m.: -2.5 (ii)

7 a.m.: -3.7 (ii)

11 a.m.: -7.5 (ii)

12 noon: -9.0 (iii)

2 p.m.: -3.8 (ii)

9 p.m.: -8.0 (ii)

12 a.m.: -12.0 (iv)

(i) Estimate; (ii) Erasmus Hall, Brooklyn, N.Y. readings; (iii) Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times, 11 Jan. 1859; (iv) Jamaica, Queens

Other Notable Low Temperatures
January 10-11, 1859

Bangor, Maine: -26.0° F
Boston, MA.: -18.0° F
Buffalo, New York: -20.0° F
Burlington, Vermont: -32.0° F
Ellsworth, Maine: -20.0° F
Hartford, CT.: -15.0° F
Montpelier, Vermont: -21.0° F
Montreal, Canada: -43.6° F
New York City, NY: -12.0° F
Ogdensburg, NY: -36.0° F
Oswego, New York: -20.0° F
Philadelphia, PA: -3.0° F
Port Jervis, NY: -16.0° F
Portland, Maine: -17.0° F
Rouses Point, NY: -38.0° F
Rutland, Vermont: -27.0° F
Watertown, NY: -30.0° F

___________________________

Endnotes:

[1] Christopher C. Burt. Extreme Weather. (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2004) 61.

[2] Christopher C. Burt. Extreme Weather. (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2004) 61.

[3] Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[4] Weather Reports. The New York Times. 10 January 1859.

[5] Weather Reports. The New York Times. 10 January 1859.

[6] Telegraphic Weather Reports, Monday, Jan. 10. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[7] Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[8] Christopher C. Burt. Extreme Weather. (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2004) 61.

[9] Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[10] Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[11] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[12] City Intelligence. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[13] Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[14] The Snow-Storm. The New York Times. 5 January 1859.

[15] Coldest Weather In Seventy Years. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[16] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[17] Suspension of Sound Navigation. The New York Times. 13 January 1859.

[18] News Of The Day. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[19] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[20] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[21] City Intelligence. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[22] News Of The Day. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[23] City Intelligence. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[24] News Of The Day. The New York Times. 11 January 1859.

[25] The Hartford Daily Courant. 11 January 1859.

[26] Christopher C. Burt. Extreme Weather. (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2004) 61.

[27] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[28] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[29] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

[30] Our City Is Cold. The New York Times. 12 January 1859.

William Sutherland is a published poet and writer. He is the author of three books, "Poetry, Prayers & Haiku" (1999), "Russian Spring" (2003) and "Aaliyah Remembered: Her Life & The Person behind the Mystique" (2005) and has been published in poetry anthologies around the world. He has been featured in "Who's Who in New Poets" (1996), "The International Who's Who in Poetry" (2004), and is a member of the "International Poetry Hall of Fame." He is also a contributor to Wikipedia, the number one online encyclopedia.

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