Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1904 — BLIZZARDS SWEEP WEST. [ARTICLE]

BLIZZARDS SWEEP WEST.

Fiercest Ftorrai of the Winter Prevail in Several States. The worst blizzard of the winter swept across several States of the Northwest Wednesday and Thursday. It covered the prairies of North Dakota and Minnesota and the hills and valleys of northern Wisconsin with a deep fall of snow that tied up street cars in many places and delayed steam railway traffic. While a 50-mile gale blowing straight for Chicago was descending from the Lake Superior region Wyoming was laboring under a blizzard that had “drifted in’’ from the Rockies, and NebraJku was suffering an unprecedented drop in temperature of sixty-three degrees within a few hours. From seventy-nine degrees the Nebraska temperature dropped to sixteen. A gale was whipping across the* whole State nnd giving warning that the Wyoming blizzard nnd its cold wave was traveling eastward at a terrific gait. Michignn and Colorado, at the sanus time, were experiencing ail the rigors of cold, hurricane nnd suoV- lowa, too, was shivering, first in a sleet storm and two lionrs later under a fall of snow, tlie temperature having dropped twentyfive degrees. The cold wave readied Chicago Thursday night, nnd the thrrntoincter closely hugged the zero point. The advance agent of the cold wave arrived Thursday morning. He brought a few handfuls of snow, which he scattered about. Tiie cold was characteristic of December Hither than March.