The blizzard I chose to study was the January 13th , 1950 blizzard. It started as a light snowfall on January 12th, but the affects of the harsh blizzard that came the next day occurred for three weeks. It happened all throughout Washington State. It was the state's worst winter outbreaks ever. This blizzard stranded people in their cars, made traffic even worse by freezing Fremont Bridge in the ‘up’ position, and even killed young kids and innocent adults as well. Two kids from Ritzville froze to death when their father, who was badly frostbitten, picked them up from school. Thirteen people died in Puget Sound. 500 sheep were frozen to death near Ephrata.
Effects of the January 13th, 1950 Blizzard
Not only did the blizzard hurt people, it hurt the environment too. When everything thawed out, trees and power lines collapsed and blocked roads, created floods, and mudslides. Although the freeze out before hand did make a beautiful piece of art out of the Snoqualmie Falls. Anyway... some people were prepared, and by that I mean that before the snow became worse they closed down schools in Seattle, but the people in Spokane weren't as prepared since they continued school when the weather got worse. Western Washington is most likely to get a blizzard again because compared to the East, it gets a lot more strong winds. Plus, it is closer to Alaska and BC, which is where Western Washington receives cold wind from.