Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about the gales of November, a fierce storm with hurricane-force winds that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1975.
The National Weather Service got started as a way to issue storm warnings for the Great Lakes, after a series of maritime tragedies. On Feb. 2, 1870, a joint congressional resolution required the secretary of war "To provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent ... and for giving notice on the northern [Great] Lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signal of the approach and force of storms."
We've come a long way from telegraphs, but on this date in 1870 the first official storm warning was issued for the Great Lakes.
A swipe of arctic air brushes Minnesota on Thursday with a breakfast-time wind chill near 10F. The approach of milder air sets off a sloppy mix of rain/snow Saturday — a little slush can't be ruled out. Temperatures rebound next week with a streak of 40s; even a shot at 50.
