Blog Reader Carla Hill shared the following information recently…
Bill,
This time last year, you wrote one of your weather history segments on the blog about a large snowfall along the Gulf Coast affecting the Lake Charles, LA area on February 11-12, 1958. I sent an email to say that I was born in Lake Charles just before that snow. I thought my parents had pictures showing my trip home with snow still on the ground, but it looks like my mind’s eye has merged two sets of pictures. The snow photos I remembered seeing so many times are actually from a second storm covering the area from Lake Charles west all the way to Houston two years later on February 12, 1960.
I’ve found two “layman’s” sources that indicate this was the largest snowfall in Lake Charles in the “modern” era (post-1900):
https://www.srh.noaa.gov/lch/jamb/jambalaya3.htm
https://www.kykz.com/kykz%20rob%20robin.htm
You probably have professional access to other records to confirm that. I think my grandmother was way ahead of her time recognizing that Southern drivers and their cars aren’t ready to handle that much snow. These pictures were taken the next morning when she finally allowed us to leave her home in the downtown Lake Charles area for our house a few miles to the east.
My mother shared a memory about that earlier 1958 snow: she and her roommate had a corner room allowing two different views of the hospital parking lot and surrounding streets. Doctors, nurses, and other staff from throughout the hospital were in and out of the room all night gawking at the accumulating snow. All of those medical personnel completely ignored the 1950s policy to allow the two new mothers their rest while we babies slept in the nursery – just another example of snow-crazy Southerners!
Carla Hill
