A Valentine’s Day Snow
By: Mindy Jarrett | February 14, 2020
“Snow on Canal Street, New Orleans.” 1978.118(B).05508
New Orleans: Love wasn’t the only thing in the air on the Valentine’s day of 1895. Around 10 in the morning, snow began to fall on the Crescent City and other areas of the south. “It is the most remarkable day, meteorologically speaking, in the history of New Orleans,” said Captain Kerkam of the local weather bureau.[1]
February of 1895 had been unusually cold; Kerkam reported that from February 7-14, the temperature was 26 degrees below average. “At this season of the year we expect an afternoon temperature of about 65 and a morning temperature of about 50, but receiving a morning temperature of 25 and an afternoon temperature of 30,” he told newspapers.
“A Scene at Coliseum Part at 10 A.M.” from The Daily States, February 15, 1895, housed in the Louisiana Historical Center’s archive.
Weather-breaking records were shattered in many of Louisiana’s southern parishes—Lake Charles reported a whopping fourteen inches of snow—while its northern localities—Shreveport received only two inches, and Columbia, near Monroe, four—were lightly dusted.
New Orleanians quickly abandoned any aspects of work and turned their city into a playground. “The city had, in fact, gone wild,” wrote The Times-Democrat. Children were let out of school early, and the usually bustling port was deserted. At the Board of Trade, the Sugar Exchange, and the Cotton Exchange, business men spent the day throwing snowballs at each other. “Some broker started the fun early in the morning by hurling a compact bundle of snow at some competitor.” [2]
Clever women united across the city, pelting unsuspecting victims (especially male victims) from second-floor balconies. “Here comes one!” and “Watch him jump!” she would tell her friends as she dumped a bucket of snow on a man below. “There was no respect for age, and the very sight of an umbrella had the same effect as a red rag to a mad bull,” said The Picayune.
Not everyone was thrilled about the snow. Street cars, to the disdain of their operators, eventually had to be abandoned where they sat. “There were cars scattered all along the lines,” and “none were able to get away from the center of the city.” Visitors in town during what was (and still is) the city’s peak tourism season were unhappily confused.
“The strangers in the city, who have fled from snow and ice, looked out of their hotel windows and wondered where they were at. They could hardly realize that they were in New Orleans.”
Snow continued to fall throughout the day, growing heavier in the afternoon. When the sun set that evening, there measured eight inches on the ground. The snow would continue the next day, too, though it hardly compared to the prior day’s fall. In total, Kerkam counted ten inches of snow from February 14-15—the heaviest snow fall recorded in the city’s history then and now.