The Big Freeze Hits the Valley
An unexpected Arctic snap brings zero-degree temperatures to the Columbia Valley, threatening local crops and breaking November records.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Breaking all records for November weather since the cold snap of 1911, an icy wave came down from the north Sunday night, bringing zero weather to many points in the northwest. It was 3 degrees above in this valley. Considerable damage was done to apples in unprotected packing sheds and potatoes in the field. Estimates of the loss in the Yakima valley run as high as a thousand cars. Practically all the crop in the vicinity of White Bluffs had been packed and marketed, so that little damage was done locally.
“An icy wave came down from the north Sunday night, bringing zero weather to many points in the northwest.”
The vulnerability of the agricultural economy to sudden climate shifts remains a central theme for the region, even as the landscape has evolved from homesteads to large-scale irrigation projects. The 1916 freeze serves as a reminder of the fragility that once defined life in the mid-Columbia.
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