Alamo Weather Jan - March 6

[cje]

What sort of weather report do we have for the Alamo from the end of January 1836 through March 6th. I can recall reading somewhere that a "Blue Northerner" happened but what would be the daily weather? It rained before February 23rd which slowed down the Mexican advance and saved the Alamo defenders from surprise I understand. Thanks.
cje

[Allen Wiener]

Don't know about pre-siege, but Almonte's journal notes the weather each day of the siege.

[Paul Sylvain]

Exactly. Having lived in San Antonio through a couple of winters, I can tell you the weather can change quickly in the extremes. One winter I was there amounted to only three "freezes" -- these were overnight lows of 32, 30 and something like 27. The temps warmed up to around 60 or 70 during the day. The next winter saw a 90-degree January day (earliest recorded 90-degree day ever recorded in SA, at least until then), but was punctuated by many "blue northers" with an ice storm and several days where it didn't even climb out of the 20s.

My point is, south Texas weather can be extreme and changeable any time of year. The weather in early 1836 strikes me as being on the colder than normal side with some warmer days, but a fair amount of colder days with frequent northers blowing in. But certainly Almonte went to great lengths to accurately record the weather conditions he encountered as part of the siege force in Bexar beginning with his arrival in February.

Paul

[Rich Curilla]

I think 1836 still holds a record as one of the coldest in southern Texas and northern Mexico.

Almonte's journal is your primary source for the best daily reports -- particularly for the siege of the Alamo. William Fairfax Gray, located in San Felipe de Austin, kept a diary with a daily weather report too, but his location might just as well have been on the other side of the world. It just didn't apply to Bexar or the march north.

One detail that has alway made me laugh (when it hasn't made me angry) is the continuing belief that it rained during the siege of the Alamo. Recent historians will still occasionally make this claim. One even sited Gray as his source!!! Movies make it worse. The Last Command shows Travis drawing the line in the mud in a heavy storm. The Imax movie shows a major rainstorm when the Gonzales men arrive.

Rain along the Brazos does not mean rain in San Antonio -- or anywhere else, for that matter. As Paul says above, it is unpredictable. At Alamo Village one afternoon, I ran across the back street from my office to the Cantina in the rain, went directly out the front door onto a dry street, and (you guessed it) went out back again into the rain!

All we can say regarding Bexar at this point is that there was a front containing showers that hit *the area* just prior to February 23. Showers from this front were responsible for the Medina being out of its banks (thus blocking Sesma), for Dr. Sutherland's horsefall riding back from seeing the Mexicans from Alazan Heights west of town on the morning of February 23, and (I am convinced) responsible for the flooding behind the Alamo coming from a suddenly overly full acequia. During the siege? Nothing.

A norther did hit, but the term "blue norther" is, I think, not contemporary to 1836. Could be wrong there.

I really don't know about the earlier part of the year. Sorry.

[Allen Wiener]

Good catch on the Medina flooding stopping Sesma; had forgotten that. Also the snow storm Santa Anna's men marched through on their way north seems to have been something of an unexpected fluke. I've never gotten the idea of that rainstorm in TLC either.

When I was in basic training at Lackland in December 1961, I recall it raining heavily on one side of a street we were marching down, while the other was dry and sunny. One of our instructors told us that, if we didn't like the weather down there, stick around a few minutes.

[Rich Curilla]

Dec 4, 2012 15:03:04 GMT -5 Allen Wiener said:

One of our instructors told us that, if we didn't like the weather down there, stick around a few minutes.

That's the slogan in State College, PA, too. The difference is that, in Texas, they mean it literally. LOL.

[Paul Sylvain]

It probably was more common to refer to these short spells of bitter cold and winds as "northers" back then (1836). I have seen the reference to "blue northers", and I use the term as well, but I believe this is a more contemporary term and probably was not in use in 1836.

The only question have about the pre-siege rains is, would the flooding behind the Alamo still been a product of those rains from two weeks earlier? I saw some crazy weather in Texas -- two years ago the Dallas area got deluged with torrential rains, causing tiny Bear Creek in Euless to flood the park and roads behind where I lived. The water rose many FEET, covering playground equipment and nearly flooding over stop signs. The rains stopped around 1 p.m. and by 5 p.m. all the water was gone and the road passable. Amazing.

[Herb]

I'm not sure, but I think maybe the term blue norther is more of a north Texas and panhandle term for the fast pace cold fronts u can literally see coming about an hour or so before they arrive. I well remember driving on a near 80 degree winter day to a hardware store in Dallas, seeing a blue norther coming, buying some lumber and heading home and the norther starting to arrive in the drive home. By the time we got home the temperature had dropped into the 40s (and kept going). The whole process took about 60 minutes. To me that's a blue norther versus a simple norther!

[Rich Curilla]

Same. My first realization that J. Frank Dobie's "blue norther" stories were more than a Texas brag came when I first moved down from PA. I was delivering magazine bundles to places in Dallas. It was blue sky and in the 70's as I crossed the parking lot into a bank, noticing the black swath of clouds on the horizon, perhaps as high as my hand if I held it out. I went inside, talked to a fellow for about ten minutes (at most), came back out side and the whole sky was blue-black. As I crossed to the car, the wind hit and immediately dropped the temperature twenty degrees (and later 40). My short-sleeved shirt was no longer good enough and I still had lots to do far from home. Dern near froze to death!

[Rich Curilla]

Then there was the fella fishing in his tank on his ranch, trying to nab the big one that always evaded him. He noticed the blue norther approaching just as he got a nibble. Then the pull almost yanked the pole out of his hands. It was the big one! He started to reel it in. The norther got closer and closer. The fish got closer and closer. It was a race against time, animal and nature! He knew he could get that fish before the norther hit, so he stood his ground. Then, just as a 30 M.P.H. wind hit and the temperature dropped, he yanked the hardest he ever yanked in his life. The fish flew up into the sky and landed on a frozen lake.

(Can I stay in Texas NOW?)

[Hiram]

As already mentioned, Almonte and William F. Gray are the best sources of weather. I don't plug the Alamo website often, but here's a link to the weather data. www.thealamo.org/battle/weather.php

Blue norther? Never heard of it!

Lived in the Texas Panhandle for six years. The average wind speed in Amarillo is 13.5 mph. Try and top that. You gotta be on an island to see anything appreciably higher than that. Chicago? Forget about it! Only 10.3 mph. San Antonio is 9.1, not much different than Chicago. The winters in San Antonio are 100% dependent on current weather conditions, meaning that it will be cold as long as the cold front is here, but when it departs, temperatures climb due to the southern latitude. My birthday is the the first week of December [still waiting to receive all the cards you guys mailed ] and it's been bitterly cold on that day in years past and also unseasonably warm. I've lived East Coast, West Coast, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Texas naturally. The quickest weather changes I've seen are in Texas.

[Hiram]

Well...isn't THIS timely? Got home from the 'Mo, turned on the local weather and heard the words "blue norther" bandied about by a meteorologist. High tomorrow expected to reach 79 degrees. Within a matter of hours the thermometer will be reading 37 degrees. Any questions?

[Paul Sylvain]

Dec 8, 2012 19:27:30 GMT -5 Hiram said:

Well...isn't THIS timely? Got home from the 'Mo, turned on the local weather and heard the words "blue norther" bandied about by a meteorologist. High tomorrow expected to reach 79 degrees. Within a matter of hours the thermometer will be reading 37 degrees. Any questions?

Can I hear an "AMEN"?

[Rich Curilla]

Speaking of Bexar weather of February of 1836, here is my representation of the flooded acequia behind the Alamo. The same weather system that held Sesma's vanguard brigade up at the Medina River on evening of the 21st. dropped an abundance of rain on San Antonio. According to at least one primary source, the Washington's Birthday fandango at the Soledad Street home of Domingo Bustillo was closed down sometime after midnight of the 22nd. due to a sudden storm. Apparently it was too much for the acequia behind the Alamo, probably in a neglected condition, and it flooded on both sides.


The primary source for this is LaBastida's March 1836 plat drawn for Santa Anna. Conjecture recently has swayed back and forth regarding how large an area was effected. Due to LaBastida's scale variances on the plat, some have suggested that he only meant that it covered the immediate area behind the eastern courtyards and church and not the whole length of the fort. My conjecture is that he drew it accurately, since the whole point IMO was to show attack obstacles -- and this certainly was a big one.


In this view from the east, we see what Col. Romero's column was faced with. The water was most likely only a few inches deep, but where were the low spots... where was the actual acequia (if the water were still at flood stage)? Actually, I'm showing it down already, since the Mexican Army allegedly blocked the acequia upstream. As an obstacle for the assault, it was still formidable -- and probably gumbo muddy. At night, impossible. So, while there was no rain during the siege (Last Command and Imax movie forgive me -- and Juan Almonte), weather clearly had its effect.

[Rich Curilla]

Further evidence that flooding was a chronic problem with the acequia is seen in this 1849 painting by Capt. Seth Eastman...


...and this 1848 painting by Capt. Arthur T. Lee -- complete with boy fishing in the lake.