Great Blue Norther of 1911

[Jim Eshelman]

November 11, 1911, central United States, around sunset

Steve just posted a link to this event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blu ... r_11,_1911

This was "a cold snap that affected the central United States" on 11/11/11. Though many U.S. cities broke record high temperatures early in the afternoon, "by nightfall" there had been roughly 70° drops in temperature. "This is the only day in many midwest cities' weather bureau jurisdictions where the record highs and lows were broken for the same day," and certainly was a day of meteorological extremes. The cold front also caused "tornadoes across the upper Mississippi Valley, a blizzard in Ohio, and the windy conditions upon front passage caused a dust storm in Oklahoma."

It's hard to pick a single place for this, to center our investigation. Some cities cited with extremes were Kansas City (65° drop), Springfield MO (40° drop in 15 minutes about 4 PM, eventually 67°), Oklahoma City (66° drop)

Springfield, MO seems to be the most extreme instance, where the 67° diurnal shift was itself a record breaker, so I'll use that as a starting point, but the effect has to show for a wider swath.

I'll center on Springfield, consult astro maps as needed, and possible include wider orbs for a larger look at the story. Sun was in Libra and Moon in Cancer when this hit, so I have high expectations for the Canlunar.

As a simpler measurement, though, on the day there was a close Sun-Saturn opposition (exact the prior day) in an era of an ongoing Uranus-Neptune opposition.

Year: Capsolar
Uranus on MC 0°52'
Jupiter on Dsc 1°17'
Sun on MC 2°30'
Saturn on EP 1°53'
Moon & Neptune widely angular
-- Jupiter-Uranus sq. 0°25' in mundo
-- Sun-Saturn sq. 1°33' in mundo
-- Sun-Uranus conj. 1°41'
-- Sun-Neptune op. 3°25'
Moon-Neptune conj. 1°09'
Moon-Saturn sq. 1°59' in mundo
Moon-Sun op. 2°16'
Moon-Uranus op. 3°57'

Extreme conditions of one or another kind are already shown by Sun-Uranus straddling Midheaven as Saturn is on EP and Jupiter setting. (I wondered how strongly Jupiter would be involved for "meteorological event in general.") Adding Saturn to the angle, and then adding its mundane aspects into Sun and Moon, made for a much more extreme chart.

The astro-map of this chart saturates the central part of the U.S. with all of these planets. If someone had the patience to examine location by location, we could get some distinctions, perhaps, of one kind of extreme weather vs. another, but - with each planet having about 180 miles either side of a line for close angularity and about 600 miles for any angularity at all, what's most impressive is the blanket of all of these planets across the entire central part of the U.S.

BTW, the angular Sun might have contributed the record high temperatures before the drop (Bradley had a few isolated examples of this back in the late '50s, don't know if anything ever proved out about it). Oklahoma City is exactly on the Saturn line.

Year #2: Cansolar
Normally we wouldn't bother with the Cansolar for this event because the Year and Quarter charts (Capsolar and Libsolar) are entirely alive; but the Cansolar remains perfectly valid, and this exploration started with Steve's observation that the 1911 Cansolar had a partile (0°36') Moon-Pluto square, characteristic of all sorts of extremes - so I thought I'd mention it. Even in its own quarter, the Cansolar was dormant for the target region, so the lunar aspect would have been the only active part of it. (Oklahoma City gets the Moon rising to make this aspect stronger.)

Bridge

Quarter: Libsolar
Uranus on MC 0°23'
Sun sq. MC 1°51'
Jupiter, Saturn, & Neptune more widely foreground
-- Jupiter-Saturn op. 0°15'
-- Sun-Neptune sq. 0°16'
-- Sun-Uranus sq. 1°58'
-- Uranus-Neptune op. 1°42'
Moon-Venus conj. 2°13' in mundo

Libsolars (by a random mathematical quirk) tend to echo Capsolar angles closely, so it's not surprising we see a similar pattern. Mostly, those shows extreme weirdness, with the Uranus-Neptune opposition squared by Sun and angular. I wonder if (as occurs with tornadoes) the Jupiter-Saturn focus is itself representative of the extremes - heat meeting cold, perhaps air pressure variants, but generally weather extremes of opposing types (thinking aloud).

Kansas City is especially straddled by the Uranus and Neptune lines, while the Jupiter-Saturn is more extreme through Illinois-Indiana (contributing to the tornado patterns?).

Month: Caplunar
Mercury on IC 0°04', Sun more widely angular
Moon-Neptune op. 0°18'
Moon-Uranus conj. 2°08'

I don't know how important this chart is in the mix. Mercury exactly angular in Springfield probably means they made the record books that day (got their name written down). What's important, I think, is that the Uranus-Neptune opposition close to the 0° Cancer-Capricorn axis was going to aspect a luminary closely and majorly in every ingress of every kind occurring during that broad period. (We always need to watch for times when slow planets cross 0° Rim.)

Week: Canlunar
Uranus on IC 0°07'
Moon sq. Asc 0°29'
Neptune sq. Asc 0°43'
-- Uranus-Neptune op. 2°13'
Moon-Neptune conj. 0°14'
Moon-Uranus op. 1°33' in mundo

The Canlunar does not disappoint! Moon's aspects to Uranus-Neptune remain close, with Moon-Neptune the closest. Remember that Moon-Neptune aspects are specifically common for tornadoes as well as general panic, while Moon-Uranus is the most common lunar aspect for shocking, often disastrous events of all sorts.

The astro-map is a tighter picture. It tightly captures the main cities involved, and is in range of other adjacent regions. The squares to the angles swerve eastward to fall closer to Illinois, Indiana, maybe Ohio.

Day: Capsolar Transits
Uranus and Neptune transit Capsolar meridian for Springfield and nearby spots. In the quarter-hour the temperature dropped, transiting Moon exactly squared that angular Capsolar Saturn. These effects are going to spread at least a small distance either way, but I'm not quite sure how far, and don't have an easy way to calculate it.