San Francisco Snowstorms

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During the second half of the 19^th century, colder weather and coastal snowfall events were more common in California than they are today. In the days before the automobile, when urbanites walked or rode the trolley, newspaper accounts rendered a pleasing picture of appreciation for that rare meteorological event, a real San Francisco snowstorm.

On December 30, 1856, a two and a half inch snowfall added to the city's holiday cheer. The Alta California reported; "The oldest inhabitant was about the streets yesterday, freely expressing his opinion that he had never seen such a day before in San Francisco. For several hours together, the white feathery flakes, such as in the Eastern States when they cover the ground with a snowy mantle, bring out the prancing horses and merry faces whose laugh keeps time to the music of the jingling sleigh bells — just such snow, the pure and genuine article, fell yesterday in San Francisco. The thermometer, during the day, fell very low; at one time in the afternoon, it sunk to 36 degrees, an unusual temperature for San Francisco."

Today, most scientists take global warming and climate change very seriously. In 1856, the Alta California editor presciently noted: "Are the seasons changing with the innovations which the Anglo Saxon race has made in California? We shall begin to think so if we continue having snow storms in winter and rains in July."

Several individuals recorded temperature and precipitation in San Francisco before the advent of the U.S. Weather Service, the most noted being Thomas Tennent from Philadelphia. Tennant, who designed nautical and mathematical instruments, began taking daily measurements on August 14, 1849, shortly after his arrival in San Francisco. The Army Signal Service took over observations on March 1, 1871, but due to Tennent's expertise as an instrument maker and the fact that he recorded rainfall to the nearest 100^th of an inch, his data were accepted as the "official" early record. (Note: Virtually all of the original 19^th century California weather records and documents were destroyed in the 1906 quake-fire, but many were later reconstituted by incorporating previously published data from journals and newspapers.)

A snowstorm on January 12, 1868, inspired the Alta California to remark; "Snow covered all the roofs and sidewalks even in the lower part of town, and the hills were for the first time in years completely whitened. The effect produced upon the city was to us in California startlingly beautiful. The velvet coating of the snow on the outlines of roofs, towers, gables and steeples with sharp distinctness, and the hills beyond the Mission Dolores, and so on all around the Bay of San Francisco were as white as the Alps in midwinter. Thus far the winter has been a rough one throughout the State, and it is likely to be long remembered as such by everybody in California."

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San Francisco's all-time record snowfall occurred on February 5, 1887, when 3.7 inches were measured at the downtown weather bureau location in the financial district. At higher elevations in the western portion of the city, the snow was 7 inches deep. The snowdepth at California Street and Central Avenue was measured at just over 6 inches. The San Francisco Chronicle devoted five full columns to accounts of the historic storm. The newspaper waxed poetically on the bucolic scene; "The first broad flakes came softly down a few minutes before 3 o'clock yesterday morning and settled as lightly as swan's down on the dark earth. People from the East saw again the Christmas of their youth, and the little ones went wild to find that their experience of snow was not to be confined to storybooks."

The Chronicle noted the excitement of little children with the novel appearance of snow: "There was an especial poetry about the joys of the little ones. There was not one who could toddle who did not rush into the streets to romp in the white, and even the sick children were carried to the windows, that they might see how bravely Mother Goose was shaking the feathers down." But it was not total bliss throughout the city. The Chronicle reported "…the street-car men journeyed up and down their lines, running the gauntlet of hundreds of men and boys who did not content themselves with snowballs, but flung hard, sharp ice, and acted as maliciously as fiends. The streetcars were pelted with snowballs without mercy, and much glass was broken. By noon, however, the small boys had been confined to the house to dry his clothes and the trainmen were less annoyed."

The paper also mentioned; "A number of former residents of Albany, New York , made a large toboggan and named it the 'Major Macfarlane,' after the editor of the Albany Press. Yesterday morning Thomas Doolan was elected Captain and Judge Pennie steersman, and a trial run was made down Haight Street hill. This is probably the first toboggan club organized in California, and the members send greetings to the coasting clubs of New York State!"