Extreme Weather In Colorado In 1949

CO2 levels were 310 ppm, well below Hansen’s safe level of 350 ppm. Temperatures dropped over 100 degrees in one day.

Blizzard of ’49 stranded hundreds of travelers

By Arlene Ahlbrandt and Wayne C. Sundberg
Wellington Centennial Committee

There are still many people who vividly remember the blizzard of January 1949. Fifty-six years ago this month, Wellington made national newsreels and newspaper headlines. It was the worst blizzard in northern Colorado history.

New Year’s Day 1949 dawned sunny and bright. Before the day ended, the temperature reached 70 degrees. The next day, a raging blizzard with winds up to 80 miles per hour swept across northern Colorado and the other Great Plains states. Temperatures dropped as low as 50 degrees below zero.

For three days in a row, the area was isolated by huge snowdrifts, and traffic was paralyzed. There were 65 motorists stranded on U.S. Highway 87 between Wellington and Cheyenne. Many were returning home from the New Year holiday. If it weren’t for the efforts of the community of Wellington, many people would have certainly frozen to death.

Many dead sheep and cattle could be seen in the fields after the storm. But the most tragic episode was the death of a couple and their two children, who had lived in Wellington but had moved to Rockport. Phillip Roman and his wife, Ione, became stranded in their stalled car. They decided to leave the car and started to walk toward their home with their two children, Tony, 10, and Peggy, 8. They were found frozen to death, the mother and little girl together, and the father and son together, all four within 100 feet of each other.

http://www.northfortynews.com/WellingtonCentennial/200501photoBlizzard.htm