In January 1975 an unusually intense winter storm struck the central and south-eastern US. Coinciding with a big annual football game, it was referred to as the Super Bowl blizzard, as well as Minnesota’s storm of the century and the tornado outbreak.
The storm originated in the Pacific. It crossed the Rocky Mountains and strengthened as it drew in cold Arctic air and warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, a pattern known as a Panhandle Hook.
The storm spawned a string of tornadoes across Mississippi and Alabama, destroying homes and killing 12 people. Meteorologists now track tornadoes with Doppler weather but in 1975 they relied on witness reports, which could be inconsistent or contradictory. The consensus is that there were about 45 tornadoes, but nobody knows the exact number.
When the humid southern air met the cold northern air it created blizzards across much of the midwest. Witnesses described an advancing “wall of white” unlike anything they had ever seen. The heavy snowfall closed roads and left lines of snowed-in cars. Snow also brought down power lines and many cattle died when they were buried in the snow. Some people were trapped in their homes for days.
Fifty years on, the Super Bowl blizzard is remembered as one of the region’s most dramatic weather events.
