Friday marks 30 years since historic cold snap
The weather this week in Butler County has been anything but pleasant, as residents have dealt with multiple days of snow and single-digit temperatures. However, at the very least, the mercury has managed to stay in the positive figures all month.
That wasn’t the case 30 years ago this Friday, when Butler County got a double whammy of both sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow over two days.
On the morning of Jan. 19, 1994, according to reports from the Butler Eagle, the temperature in Butler reached a record low of -20 degrees. It was much the same across the region, with temperatures of -22 at Pittsburgh Airport and -17 in Erie.
According to records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Butler station, the high temperature in Butler reached -1 on Wednesday, Jan. 19, and -2 on Thursday, Jan. 20.
Western Pennsylvania was far from alone, as the arctic chill spread far and wide across the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. Multiple cities recorded record-low temperatures which still stand to this day, including Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Indianapolis.
“As I recall, we had a very strong cold front come through the region from out of Canada, and very dry air with it,” said Lee Hendricks of the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.
For Butler residents, the cold snap came as an added insult in the middle of a month that featured multiple snowstorms. By Jan. 19, 10 inches of snow had accumulated at the Butler station, after 6 inches fell between Jan. 17 and 18.
In Butler County, West Penn Power urged residents and businesses to conserve electricity usage as much as possible, as the company was dealing with a combination of record-high megawatt consumption and equipment failures. The Armco melt shop chipped in by deactivating at least one of its three furnaces for multiple days, while most stores at the Butler and Clearview malls closed at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, to conserve power.
During the peak of the cold snap, at least 2,408 customers across Butler County lost power. By Thursday, Jan. 20, the governor had declared a state of emergency.
In Butler County, the cold led to two deaths by Thursday morning, Jan. 20. One, a 78-year-old woman froze to death under the front porch of the Slippery Rock Township home where she was staying, likely after going outside and becoming disoriented. A 48-year-old man from Evans City died when his minivan crashed into a tractor-trailer which was malfunctioning because of diesel fuel gelling.
By Jan. 29, 1994, the cold front had passed, and temperatures reached a balmy high of 50.
