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Weather Almanac

Weather Almanac for January 2012

THE KNICKERBOCKER STORM 1922

When I first heard of the Knickerbocker Storm of 1922 several years ago, I assumed that the snowstorm had focused its major disruption on the New York City area for which the term “knickerbocker” is usually applied. Later, however, I learned that the descriptor arose from a specific incident during that storm: the collapse of the Knickerbocker Theater in Washington DC that took the lives of 98 patrons. The US National Weather Service office for Baltimore/Washington rates this storm as the area’s tenth worst weather event of the 20th Century, its third worst winter weather event, and worst snowstorm. Indeed, the total accumulation of snowfall from the storm set the storm and 24-hour snowfall records for Washington DC that still stands. In nearby Baltimore, the 24-hour snowfall from this storm remains the record, and the total storm accumulation reigned until 1996.

Before the Storm

The District of Columbia and surrounding region generally experiences a winter climate that is milder than that further up the Atlantic coast, but can have its strong bursts of snow and cold. As the historic record shows, since the inauguration date was moved to January, several presidential inaugurations have been marred by snow and cold. And who will forget the infamous "Snowmageddon" and "Snowmageddon 2.0" storms of February 2010. But prior to those storms, the Knickerbocker storm of 1922 held a special place in Washington DC’s weather annals.

In the days preceding the storm of 27 January 1922, Washington weather was mild early in the month and again during the week prior (20 January) to the storm when the high temperature reached 53°F (11.7°C).


Weather Map for 26 January 1922, 8 am EST
Courtesy, NOAA, NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project

Just prior to the storm, a cold arctic air mass had settled over the northeastern United States and extended down into the deep South. The high temperature in Atlanta, Georgia on the 25th had only reached 34°F (1.1°C); while it Washington it had registered a chilly 25°F (-3.9°C). The morning low on the 26th in the Nation’s Capitol dipped to a shivery 11°F (-11.7°C) . Much of the Atlantic coastal states north of DC had dropped to single digits Fahrenheit or lower (below -12°C), and in the St Lawrence Valley, they dipped below zero Fahrenheit (-18°C). As the weather map for the morning (8 am EST) of Thursday 26 January 1922 shows, no strong center of low pressure had yet developed that would threaten the central Atlantic coast region (here considered as Virginia, Maryland and Delaware as well as the District of Columbia, an area now often referred to as DelMarVa.) The forecast for the region predicted warming temperatures and fair weather extending into Friday. However, for the Carolinas southward to Florida and westward into Tennessee and Kentucky, rain or snow were expected to fall.

The following morning, a wide band of precipitation settled over the region from Virginia and the Ohio Valley southward to the Gulf and westward to the Mississippi Valley. A surface low was plotted on the morning surface synoptic chart offshore of the Georgia and South Carolina coasts. The greatest 24-hour pressure drop occurred over North Carolina — an indication of the likely direction that the storm was headed. During the day, the low pressure center, now moving over the warm Gulf Stream, intensified. The forecast for the day had rain and snow visiting the central Atlantic coast with strong northeast winds; in Washington, the low was forecast to be 20°F (-6.7°C). The precipitation was to move up the coast to New York and New England later in the day and continue into the 28th with east to northeast winds blowing as the storm moved northward and offshore. A cold strong, high-pressure cell (1033 mb) remained over the St Lawrence Valley, keeping the Eastern Seaboard cold.

The Blizzard Hits the Capitol

As the storm center moved slowly up the Atlantic coast on the 27th, it brought rain and snow first to the Carolinas then to southern Virginia. With a tongue of cold air sticking southward over the Appalachian Mountains from New England, the precipitation from northern Virginia northward fell as wet snow. Late in the evening, snow began to fall across the Washington DC area.


Weather Map for 27 January 1922, 8 am EST
Courtesy, NOAA, NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project

On the morning of the 28th, the lowest central pressure lay off North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras sending moist air from the Atlantic on northeasterly winds across DelMarVa. The 32°F (0°C) isotherm hugged the coast from the Virginia—North Carolina border northward to Massachusetts. Gale-force winds blew along the coast from Cape Hatteras north to Cape Cod. To the south in Richmond, Virginia, the 8 am weather observation reported winds blowing at 22 mph (35 km/h), and along the coast at Norfolk, Virginia, they howled at 36 mph (58 km/h). Further north, at Atlantic City, New Jersey, the winds reached 42 mph (67 km/h). By the 8 am observation, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Maryland and Richmond, Virginia had all accumulated over an inch (250 mm) of precipitation, mostly falling as snow, during the previous 24 hours.

Very heavy snows were forecast for the 28th for parts of Virginia, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Delaware with storm warnings flying along the coast from Cape Hatteras to Boston, Massachusetts.


Weather Map for 28 January 1922, 8 am EST
Courtesy, NOAA, NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project

Washington residents who ventured out that Saturday morning did so through 18 inches of wet snow with temperatures of 21-26°F (-6 to -3°C). Conditions worsened in the city and surrounding countryside as the day progressed. By mid-afternoon, the official Washington weather station (at 22nd and M St) measured the snowfall at 25 inches (63.5 cm) deep, and it continued to fall. When the snow finally abated just after midnight on the morning of the 29th, the official tally was 28 inches (71 cm), and in Rock Creek Park, three miles (five kilometres) north of the official weather station, the accumulation measured 33 inches (84 cm). The snowstorm would be the biggest in the city’s history since official records began there in 1885. (Note that records at Dulles International Airport outside Washington began in 1962, and its record storm snowfall in 2010 exceeded that of the Knickerbocker storm.)

F Street, Washington's busiest thoroughfare

Pennsylvania Avenue, near State, War, and Navy Building.

However, it was not the biggest ever experienced in the area. That honor belonged to the so-named Washington and Jefferson Snowstorm of January 1772 when 36 inches (0.91 m) of snow fell on the region. (The storm, which occurred 150 years to the day before the Knickerbocker storm, was so named based on the writings and observations of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson at their nearby plantations.) The daily accumulation on the 28th measured a record 21 inches (53 cm), and over a 24-hour period within the 27th and 28th tallied 25 inches (63.5 cm). For the in-city observation site, the single day, two-day, and three-day (storm) snowfall records all remain at those set during this storm. The storm (and two-day) records fell (32.4 inches (82.3 cm) total) at Washington’s Dulles International Airport during the famed “Snowmageddon” storm of February 2010. (And to add further insult to the Capitol, "Snowmageddon 2.0" struck four days later.) The daily snowfall at Dulles on 11 February 1983 of 22.5 inches (57.1 cm) also exceeded that of the daily snowfall in 1922.

Slippery walks were responsible for many falls

Lafayette Square during the "Knickerbocker" storm.

In nearby Baltimore, the final snow tally measured 26.5 inches (67.3 cm), the greatest storm accumulation there since records began in 1872. The Knickerbocker storm total would not be exceeded until 1996, and again in 2003. However, the single-day total of 23.3 inches (59.2 cm) and the two-day total — 26.3 inches (66.8 cm) — still stand. Richmond, Virginia recorded 19 inches (48 cm) during the storm.

The Knickerbocker Tragedy

The storm-defining event occurred on Saturday evening (28 January) at Crandall’s Knickerbocker Theater. The theater owned by Harry Crandall was the largest and most modern movie house in Washington at the time. Opened in 1917, it was located at the corner of 18th Street NW and Columbia Road, and held 1700 patrons.


Crandall's Knickerbocker Theatre on the morning after its roof
collapsed under the weight of a 28-inch snowfall.
Courtesy: Washingtonian Division, D.C. Public Library.

That evening, patrons, who had braved the raging storm outside to reach the theater, were awaiting the second showing of the silent movie Get Rich Quick Wallingford, starring George M. Cohan (and featuring the debut of comedian Jimmy Durante). Saturday night was “Comedy” night at the Knickerbocker, and a very popular attraction that enticed many to leave the comforts of home that stormy evening. The second showing of the evening was about to begin, and patrons were still filing into their seats when disaster struck.

At approximately 9 pm — plus or minus a couple minutes to the recollection of one survivor — the weight of the snow accumulated on the building’s flat roof caused it to collapse. Some survivors recalled a hissing sound filling the hall just prior to the ceiling splitting down its center. Others said there was no warning. As it split with a frightening roar, the cave-in brought down the cement balcony, its seats and a portion of the brick wall onto the main floor. Dozens were buried in the collapse.

Those fortunate enough to have not been buried raced for any exit they could find. Others called for missing friends and family lost in the rubble and rising dust and snow. One newspaper scribe, a veteran reporter of the devastation of World War I, likened the twisted steel, broken timbers and cracked cement to be “as grim as any ruin in the war-swept area of France or Belgium.”


Inside the Knickerbocker Theater after the roof collapsed.
Courtesy: The Library of Congress.

The chaos of the initial scene lessened with the arrival of police and firemen who organized the rescue operation. Heavy equipment was brought in and by midnight, a crew of 200 had assembled. The number swelled to 600 volunteers and 200 police by 2:30 am. The shouts of rescue workers mixed with cries of anguish from those still buried under the wreckage of twisted steel, splintered timber and crumbled masonry that covered the floor of the theater. Once rescuers had cut through the heavy wire screening that held the ceiling’s plaster, they still had to cut through the cement of the balcony to reach those trapped under the debris on the main floor.

All local hospital rooms quickly filled with the injured, as did many hotels who opened their doors to the victims. Nearby homes and shops joined in assisting the injured and the escaped as well as the rescue workers. The rescue effort was not completed until mid-afternoon Sunday. In total, 98 patrons died and another 133 were injured. One of the dead was former Pennsylvania Congressman Andrew Jackson Barchfeld.


Walking through the snow on New York Ave and Fourteenth St

The wreckage of the Knickerbocker Theater was razed and a new theater was built on the site: the Ambassador Theater, also owned by Harry Crandall. The tragedy could be attributed to two more deaths in the coming years. The theater’s architect Reginald Geare would get no further work after the collapse, although official inquiries exonerated him of any fault for the collapse. He took his own life in 1927, despondent at the loss of his career. A similar fate claimed theater owner Harry M. Crandall who committed suicide in 1937.

The Storm Moves North

After burying Washington and Baltimore, the Knickerbocker storm moved northeastward, further out to sea. By the morning of the 29th, although it lay well east of Chesapeake Bay, it continued to pump moist air and strong winds into the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey north to Massachusetts. The storm’s slow movement allowed snowfall accumulations to pile to significant depth north of the DelMarVa region. The fallen snow accumulated to as much as 3 feet (91 cm) along the rail lines between Washington and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with gale-force winds building drifts as high as 16 feet (4.9 m). Atlantic City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York City all received over an inch (250 mm) of precipitation (water equivalent) between 8 am, 28 January and 8 am, 29 January.


Weather Map for 29 January 1922, 8 am EST
Courtesy, NOAA, NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project

The storm stopped all rail and road traffic into and out of Washington for several days. Analysis of the extent of the storm indicated that approximately 22,400 square miles (58,000 km²) of the US Atlantic coastal states had snow accumulation of 20 inches (51 cm) or more, that affected around one million people. The area covered by 10 inches (25 cm) of snow was 62, 300 square miles (161,300 km²) and affected 26 million people.

Pedestrian Traffic on Fifteenth St and Pennsylvania Ave.

The Capitol steps gathered its share of snow.

In the storm’s wake, Washington was paralyzed by the snow for several days. On Saturday, only 49 Senators and a handful of Representatives answered roll call, and Congress was soon adjourned. Only those Government workers who could walk to work managed to make it in, and several important committees meetings were cancelled.


Digging out during the record-breaking Knickerbocker snowstorm, January 28, 1922.
Courtesy, NOAA, NOAA Photographic Library

Unless noted, all photographs courtesy NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Collection. Daily Weather Maps, courtesy NOAA, NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project

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