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On Today's Date: America's Most Extreme Cold Front

Left: A temperature graph from Springfield, Missouri, on Nov. 11, 1911; Middle: The surface weather map taken the morning after the cold front on Nov. 12; Right: The nine tornadoes in the upper Midwest and F-scale ratings on Nov. 11
(NOAA/NWS)

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The second week of November has a long history of powerful storms in the nation’s midsection, including the 1975 Edmund Fitzgerald storm and the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard.

But on Nov. 11, 1911, 113 years ago today, arguably the nation’s most extreme cold front swept through the Plains and Midwest, with incredible results.

(MORE: Why November's Supermoon Will Be Special)

Two cities set both daily record highs and lows on the same day. Oklahoma City plunged from 83 degrees that afternoon to 17 degrees just before midnight. Springfield, Missouri, had a similar temperature crash, accompanied by damaging winds to 74 mph.

Perhaps nowhere else had a more unusual extreme weather lerch than the Great Lakes. Ahead of the front, nine tornadoes tore through parts of five Midwest states. That included an F4 tornado in Janesville, Wisconsin, that evening which killed nine people.

In a cruel, shocking twist, just three hours after the F4 tornado, temperatures plunged into the single digits behind the cold front and blizzard conditions developed, hampering recovery efforts.

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