There's one area of history that everyone loves to talk about - the weather. Think about it. Every time there's a new winter storm, everybody in the office has a horror story to tell about his or her commute. Soon, the conversations turn to previous storms, and how bad they were. Everybody seems to remember inclement weather. Of course, it helps that in the Pacific Northwest, storms have a knack for occurring around holidays, allowing us to remember them by name (e.g. the Columbus Day Storm, the Inauguration Day Storm, and countless Thanksgiving Day Storms, to name a few).

This month's article highlights notable winter weather in Kirkland's past. This information was gathered from articles in the old East Side Journal, all of which were front-page news. Just like today, bad weather is always the number one topic of discussion.

Winter 1916/17 - The granddaddy of all winter storms. Unfortunately, the East Side Journal did not start publication until 1918, so this storm is only mentioned in passing in later issues. (i.e. Yesterday's storm wasn't as bad as the Big Snow of 1916...).

Winter 1926/27 - This storm is notable, if only for the fact that the reporter covering it was smitten with a poetic temperament. Here's how he described it: "The king of the winds held the East Side in the hollow of his hand Wednesday night when with mighty gusts, trees were torn up by the roots, signs blown from their hangings and boats torn from their moorings."

Winter 1928/29 - Fifty mile an hour gales hit Kirkland. The only damage discussed in the paper involved the town's Christmas tree. The Business and Professional Woman’s club erected the tree and they were hoping to win a prize in a Seattle Times' tree contest. The winds blew the tree over, but upon inspection it was noted that two guy wires had been cut. The members believed that the wires were cut by people who were inconvenienced by the tree, saying, "The selfish interest of a few seems to have taken precedence over the pleasure of the great majority of people in the community."

Winter 1932/33 - This wasn't a big storm, and cavorting on the ice allowed people to forget their depression-era troubles, if but for a little while. Clayton Shinstrom was noted to be an excellent skater, but Doc Raymond was memorialized in print as having gotten "mixed up in the barbed wire entrenchments some way or another". Meanwhile, doctors at Kirkland Hospital were noted to have been "taking care of knots on heads, gashes on legs and arms, stiffness of joints and bruised fannies".

Winter 1933/34 - This was a wet winter. December rains caused major flooding. The Redmond golf course was knee-deep in areas, and it was noted that Lake Washington was at it's highest level since the canal was dug in 1916. A house east of Redmond was caught in a mudslide, and ended up on top of nearby railroad tracks.

Winter 1934/35 - This was one of those landmark storms. After dropping eleven inches of snow, a warm Chinook wind and heavy rains melted it all away in a 24-hour period. Downtown Kirkland was hit hard. A drainage creek undermined Martin's Grocery and the East Side Bakery. The oven in the bakery fell through the floor and was washed away. Fortunately, in true small town spirit, baking continued on with the assistance of the ovens at Schmidt's Bakery, down the street.

Winter 1942/43 - Anyone who was around here back then is sure to remember this snowstorm. A cold snap hit on January 16, followed by three days of snow. Even though wartime production was moving in full force, the Lake Washington Shipyard was temporarily closed down. One quarter of the phone lines in the area went down, and long-distance calls couldn't even be made to as far away as Bellevue. Thankfully, the plane-spotters in the observation tower between Bellevue and Kirkland persevered throughout, ensuring that no enemy planes breached our national security.

Winter 1946/47 - Six inches of snow landed on Kirkland, and Redmond had around twenty inches. Schools were closed for a week, 40 percent of the local phones went out of service, football games were cancelled, but the paper noted that the Lake Washington Ferries remained on schedule.

Winter 1948/49 - A record low of 14 degrees was reached on January 4th. The newspaper interviewed local citizens and had them guess the temperature. Grocer Harlan Gehrt guessed 20, Police Chief Allen Cameron guessed 15, and his son, Harold, guessed 8. Juanita storeowner Art Case made this observation: "I took a careful reading of the store thermometer before locking the safe for the night. It said 72. I noticed no appreciable departure from our customary beautiful weather; lots of people on the beach and everyone with a picnic lunch." The paper noted that other self-styled weathermen were inclined to disagree, and that they all felt it to be colder than the Big Snow of 1916.

Winter 1955/56 - In December, a 68-mile gale hit the community, tearing a floatplane from her moorings on Lake Washington and sinking her. In January, a more spectacular event occurred when ball lightning struck a 150-foot tall fir tree in Denny Park. One witness described it as "... a ball of fire, spiraling around the tree and making an awful noise". One terrified neighbor thought that Sand Point had blown up.

These are just some of the weather stories that local residents have been sharing around watercoolers and woodstoves for decades. So, the next time we have a winter storm and a coworker tells you about the huge branches in his yard, you can carry on the tradition of Northwest winter horror stories. Now you can say, "Oh that's nothing compared to the ball of fire that came screaming out of the sky back in '56.". See if they can top that one.

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