The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

Just a decade ago, on Jan. 25, 2006, Al Gore warned that unless “drastic measures” were taken the world would, within 10 years, “pass the point of no return.” We were headed for the frying pan by 2016, on a downhill skid to cloudless skies, global crop failure, coastal states below water, mortals toasted to a fare-thee-well, the end in sight. 

A few of us still wonder how experts unable to reliably predict the weather for southwest Iowa four hours in advance can be certain of a fraction of a degree global temperature fluctuation years in the future. 

We read of politics and money and data tampering. Misleading weather statements, intended to enforce the message, are routine. In mid-June, for example, the director of meteorology for a national weather service issued a news release warning that parts of this country were likely to reach “all-time high temperatures” before the month was over. The weather historian for Weather Underground announced that “all time” heat records were being broken in Thailand. 

All-time? According to my Webster, “all-time” means “ever,” “all of time,” “since the beginning of time.” If we read closely, however, we find the first statement is based on a U.S. temperature graph that covers the period from 1981 till now. We also learn that Thailand has only kept records since the 1950s. 

Actually, some people living today experienced much hotter summers; including one in which the top was blown off a thermometer in downtown Villisca – at least that’s what the newspaper reported. 

In the early 1930s, things were warming up all over the world. By 1934, temperatures in southwest Iowa were the highest local residents had known. Two years later, the blizzard of the century was followed by an unusually warm March. May brought serious heat. Crop reports had good news and bad. Corn planting was going well, but germination was poor due to lack of moisture. Temperatures the first week of May were in the 90s, with day after day of blistering south winds. June was worse, and July was a month we youngsters under 80 have never experienced. A news article from July 10 reads as follows: 

Intense heat continues to prevail, with area temperatures exceeding 100 degrees six of the past eight days in Montgomery, Page, Adams, Taylor and Cass counties, with many reporting stations at 110 or higher. On July 4, Le Mars reported a 117-degree high. Most of southwest Iowa has not received rain amounting to one-quarter inch during the past 30 days. 

Late that month, below the headline “No Relief in Sight from Terrific Heat,” the Villisca Review ran this article:

According to Mayor Farquhar, temperatures have exceeded 100 every day since July 3. On July 4 and 12 the high was 109, and on July 14 it was 114. 

At Moore’s Pharmacy, one of the two thermometers hanging on the front of the building got too hot Wednesday when the mercury column could not get higher than 120 at the end of the tube, and it blew the top off and quit business. 

There has been no rain for the month and none is in the forecast.

That 114 degree day, at 70 percent humidity, would have produced a heat index of 218 degrees Farenheit. Imagine what local radio broadcasters could do with that number. 

Crops that looked bad in June died in July, and so did people. As many as 5,000 heat-related deaths were reported in this country, many thousands more around the world. No one had air conditioning; for many there was not even temporary escape from the relentless heat. In Steele, N.D., the official high of 121 hasn’t since been approached. My grandfather was one of many who felled trees to feed starving cattle. Farmers over a large portion of the Great Plains had no crop to harvest that year. Some hadn’t had one for several years. 

The unenlightened masses, assuming they were experiencing a cyclical event, soldiered on. 

Rain came to southwest Iowa in late August, with portions of eastern Montgomery County reporting a 4-inch downpour. 

The Dust Bowl years were winding down, a World War was on the horizon, and Al Gore was soon to be born. 

  Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.