When a “big blow” struck Northern Utah

                The mouth of Weber Canyon creates a funnel for high winds.

STRONG canyon winds have plagued the Top of Utah numerous times since the pioneers settled here.

As the May 23, 1914 Ogden Standard-Examiner recalled the windy day of Nov. 15, 1860, that  brought a “Big blow” out of Ogden Canyon -- one of the worst-ever such winds.

“Every fence that faced the wind is prostrated,” the account stated. “Mr. McQuarrie’s fine two-story house is leveled to the ground. Mr. Bowman’s dwelling house is blown down. Mr. Jost’s cottage is completely destroyed. Mr. Jonathan Browning’s large two-story house  -- with basement for merchantile purposes, as also that house of M.C. Shurtliff.”

Ogden City Hall was unroofed. About one-third of the north side of the Tabernacle was also unroofed. A cow belonging to Mr. Ensign was killed when a pole from a shed came loose and hit the animal in the head.

-Oct. 20-21, 1906 was another big blow in Ogden. “Storm did damage to nearly every house. Railroad trains and street cars failed to move for hours – Electric light and telephone lines damaged – There will be no lights in homes of Ogden tonight” was an Oct. 22, 1906 headline in the Standard.

The report stated that hurricane force winds blew for 36 hours. Many windows were broken and at least 200 telephone poles were knocked down, along with many chimneys.

-Oct. 30-31, 1920 was still another high wind event. The Nov. 1 Standard that year stated that trees, telephone poles, and barns were damaged.

A rusting city water main on 23^rd Street, between Adams and Jefferson avenues, also broke during the storm “and caused a flood to sweep down the hill.”

-The pioneers soon noticed that a “cap cloud,” low-hanging clouds along the crest of Wasatch Mountains often meant canyon winds would follow 24-72 hours later.

-Davis County also has a lengthy history of canyon wind events. During a visit by Brigham Young to Farmington on Nov. 9, 1864, the canyon winds were blowing and President Young rebuked the winds.  Until 1896, the canyons winds didn’t return again.

-However, earlier in February of 1864, canyon winds struck Farmington hard during a winter cold spell. Elizabeth Rigby and her son, John, froze to death in that storm after being pinned against a fence by hurricane force. (Husband John Rigby was in Salt Lake on business at the time.)

Besides those two fatalities, the Rigby home’s roof was blown off and some 200 sheep, six horses and 10 cows also perished because of downed buildings and the frigid winds.

-The first canyon winds recorded by pioneers in Davis County happened in the fall of 1848, within the first few days of some settlers, like Daniel A. Miller of Farmington, having just arrived there.

              The narrow mouth of Ogden Canyon is a natural wind funnel.

-Historically, perhaps  the highest regularity for canyon winds in northern Utah was the 40-year span from 1959-1999, when 29 episodes of such high canyon winds blew. That means these “big blows” averaged coming about every 16 ½ months. They have been less frequent ever since.

 (-Originally published on-line and in print in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, by Lynn Arave on Nov. 27-28, 2014.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

Besides the 'Seagull' miracle, were there at least 3 pioneer 'wind' miracles too?

By Lynn Arave

PERHAPS the most famous miracles in Mormon Pioneer history occurred in June-July of 1848 when the first crops in the Salt Lake Valley were threatened by a plague of insects, what would later be called “Mormon crickets.”

Starting in May, the crickets started eating the wheat, corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, melons and other crops – and continued to do so for a month.

After many prayers by the pioneers, a white cloud of seagulls flew in during early June and started devouring the crickets. 

However, this was not a one-day event. The birds came daily for about three weeks, eating insects, drinking water and then regurgitating before eating more of the insects. The remainder of the pioneer crops were saved.

This timely appearance of gulls was described in a letter of June 9 to Brigham Young, who was back East at the time: "The sea gulls have come in large flocks from the lake and sweep the crickets as they go; it seems the hand of the Lord is in our favor." 

(However, for some pioneer settlers, it apparently required months of time afterward for this to be heralded as a miracle.)

The Seagull Monument on Salt Lake’s Temple Square commemorates that event.

                      Seagull Monument on Salt Lake's Temple Square.

However, the early Layton-Kaysville area apparently benefited from what may also be a similar miraculous event.

Grasshoppers, rather than the more famous Mormon crickets, caused the majority of the insect damage in pioneer Utah. (Crickets were hardly a nuisance in Utah after 1850.)

During the summer of 1854, grasshoppers threatened to destroy all the crops of settlers in the Layton-Kaysville area. 

This insect horde rose one morning like a low, dark cloud. However, huge wind gusts soon came from the eastern canyons and carried the grasshoppers out over the Great Salt Lake. 

Millions of dead insects later washed up on the shores of the lake and most of the settlers’ crops were spared.

While gusting canyon winds occasionally occur in winter, early spring or late fall, they are very, very unlikely to happen in the summer, according to northern Utah weather records.

In fact, historically, this is the lone recorded canyon wind gusting event in the prime summer months for Davis County. From mid-May to early September, these winds have otherwise never blown.

                         Some marshes around the Great Salt Lake.

The same windy “miracle” also repeated at least twice, though in Salt Lake County.

A year later, in 1855, in the western area of Salt Lake County, swarms of grasshoppers also threatened settlers’ crops. Once again, a providential wind came along and blew the insects into the Great Salt Lake.

The same thing happened again during 1868 in Salt Lake.

 After noticing the quantities of dead insects in the lake in 1868, Benjamin LeBaron wrote, "I consider this later deliverance from the grasshoppers just as great and miraculous as the former 1848 rescue from the ravages of the black crickets."

The years 1854-56, 1867-72, and 1876-79 are believed to have been the worst years of grasshopper infestations in Northern Utah during the pioneer era.

SOURCES: Encyclopedia of Mormonism; “Utah’s Weather and Climate,” by Dan Pope and Clayton Brough; http://historytogo.utah.gov  and “Davis County Land of Peace, Beauty and a Quality of Life,” by the Davis School District, 1994.

(-Written by Lynn Arave and originally posted on the Layton City Web site, on March 27, 2014.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

Wasatch Front Canyon Winds History: They Aren't East Winds Everywhere

                            The narrow mouth of Weber Canyon can produce strong wind gusts.


Hurricane force east canyon winds along the Wasatch Front are nothing new.
In fact, from 1959 to 1999, there were 26 such occurrences of damaging east winds.
So, they averaged about every 18 months for 4 decades and then disappeared for more than 12 1/2 years until Dec. 1, 2011.
The damage from these winds was mostly so extreme, because it had been more than a decade since the Wasatch Front had any such wind events and so the damage came all at once, mostly from overgrown trees.
Then, another such wind event struck on April 9, 2013. And, they struck again on April 30-May 1, 2016. The latest episodes of these horrific winds was Sept. 8-9, 2020; January 18, 2021 and March 14-17, 2024.

Still more canyon downslope winds came on May 10, 2024 -- perhaps the latest they've ever blown into the spring season.

 The "new" average for these winds is more in line with about every 3 1/2 years now.
The year 1988 featured a record three such east wind events. There were also two such hurricane force canyon wind events in 1964, 1973, 1983, 1986 and 1997.
April 2, 1973 featured some of the strongest, sustained canyon winds. Those winds picked up a pole vaulting porta-pit mat and carried across Weber State University's Wildcat stadium as if it was cardboard.
We forget that these winds are a periodic part of nature along the Wasatch Front.
Technically, they are "downslope winds."
Northern Utah's "canyon winds," or "east winds" are simply legendary. 
However, depending on where you live, these winds are not necessarily east winds.
Although I built my cedar fence strongest on the east side, that was pointless, since strong east winds have never hit my house.
In fact, the Dec. 1, 2011 winds that struck my property were straight from the north. (And they broke 4 posts along my fence's northern side.)
I asked Dan Pope, a from Utah weather expert on KTVX-TV then (now he's on Fox-13), to address the question on wind direction and why "east winds" aren't always east winds.
His explanation is intriguing and worth repeating, especially since no TV weathercaster has enough air time to provide this much detail.
Dan Pope's answer:
These ... winds were "mountain wave" induced. But, the topography does force the winds to veer with distance; and due to local hills, canyons and location they can change as they move away from the mountains. They also come in rolling as they slam the ground (spinning counter clockwise).
In North Salt Lake, I have always noticed a veering to the north, because the hills by and to the north of Eaglewood Golf Course, that force the eastward track around them to flow southward.
These hills are also are northeast-southeast oriented, and with City Creek Canyon on the other side, the winds likely skip over the flat area above Meridian Peak and are pushed away from the hills, protecting some of the upper Bench of North Salt Lake from the worst gusts, while Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington and areas northward are directly in line with the Wasatch Mountains, and the "wave" effect.
When we have these kinds of winds, there is usually a low pressure spinning to our south. The upper level winds come from the east or preferably the Northeast. And, at the surface, the pressure is much higher in Wyoming and lower in Utah. In a low pressure like this, sometimes a little warmer air is wrapped in above the mountain tops. This creates an inversion at 12,000 or 13,000 feet, and keeps any wind from rising--and creates a Venturi effect. 
Plus, the Uinta Mountains line up directly east of Bountiful and Davis County, so all wind get pushed eastward towards the Wasatch mountains from extreme Northern Salt Lake County and Davis County northward.
Rule of thumb is that winds will be 2 to 4 times higher than at mountain top as they "roller coaster" down the slopes; and they will hit beyond the base of the mountains 1/2 to 3 or 4 miles out towards the Great Salt Lake. Then they fan out, and can go in multiple directions.
To the south of Davis County, they fan to the south (a north wind) and northward the can even come in from the SE if a person lives more than 3 or 4 miles from the base of the Wasatch. But, more often than not, these winds veer to the south away from the Wasatch, because the surface pressure is lower to the south.
There are certain locations near the canyons and at the base of the Wasatch in Davis, and counties northward, where these winds can be severe right at the base. Bountiful, Centerville and Farmington, as well as NE Ogden, Brigham City and even Logan fall into this category.

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EAST WINDS WERE A PIONEER PROBLEM TOO:

Strong east canyon winds have been known to buffet the Wasatch Front, particularly Davis County, ever since the Mormon pioneers arrived in the late 1840s.
"East winds have come from time to time (in Davis County) ever since the people can remember, doing much damage to trees and roofs," states the history book, "East of Antelope Island," published by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.The first recorded incident of strong east winds comes from a diary of Daniel A. Miller, one of the earliest settlers in Farmington.
He recorded that the very first day his family arrived in the area -- the fall of 1848 -- there was a heavy east wind.
Early settlers created inventive ways to try to secure their roofs from these winds, but nothing seemed foolproof. One early Kaysville resident, John R. Barnes, made the east walls of his home four bricks thick to ward off canyon wind damage.
Prominent settler George D. Watt made a special wind storm shelter for his family, but he still had his home's roof blown off.
A strong east wind in the summer of 1854 actually performed a miracle. The canyon winds saved the day by blowing hordes of invading grasshoppers away from Davis County crops and into the Great Salt Lake, where they perished.
Hurricane-force east winds struck at least twice in the early 1860s, and the roof on the East Bountiful LDS Church had to be replaced twice.
After one such east wind, the Tuttle brothers from Bountiful jokingly inquired on Antelope Island if any missing hats had been found.
The east winds were a very feared and dreaded occurrence, especially in Farmington. It was canyon winds and water shortages that plagued many early Davis settlers the most.
Perhaps the saddest east wind incident took place in February 1864 when Elizabeth Rigby of south Farmington and her 18-month-old son, John, froze to death after being pinned against a fence by hurricane force canyon winds. Husband John Rigby had left his family to travel to Salt Lake City for medicine. Upon returning, he not only discovered the two deaths, but the home's roof was also blown off and 200 sheep, six horses, 10 cows and four pigs perished because of downed buildings and the frigid winds.
During a Nov. 9, 1864, visit to Farmington with Wilford Woodruff when the canyon winds were blowing, LDS Church President Brigham Young rebuked the winds in the name of the Lord.
Woodruff's diary reports that east winds did decrease substantially for some years afterward, perhaps as long as the late 1890s.
When Matthew Cowley reviewed Woodruff's diary in 1909 before its publication, he noted:
"In late years these winds have occurred in some of their old-time severity."
Strong east winds struck Davis County twice during 1896 and two more times in 1898. A fierce canyon wind in 1906 took the roof off the 2-year-old West Bountiful LDS Chapel.

Sources: Dan Pope, meteorologist, "East of Antelope Island" book, by Daughters of Utah Pioneers; "Weather and Climate" book, by Dan Pope and Clayton Brough.

(-Written by Lynn Arave and published in the Deseret News, April 23, 1999.)