John Wheeler: Should last week's Gulf Coast storm be called 'once in a lifetime?'

By John Wheeler

January 23, 2025 at 9:12 PM

FARGO — Last week's Gulf Coast snowstorm was given the moniker, "A Once in a Lifetime Storm" by the national media. The national media love monikers, and they usually contain a certain amount of inflation from the truth in an effort to grab the public's attention.
This one deserves examination. Many, but not all, long-term weather stations across southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle did break snowstorm total records, and many of the previous records were set in the Great Gulf Coast snowstorm of 1899. Given that 125 years is more than most lifetimes, the moniker works. This meteorologist's only concern is that the name, "Once in a Lifetime Storm," implies a periodicity that does not exist in our highly variably weather. Another similar storm could happen within a few years and then 175 years might go by without another.

By John Wheeler

John Wheeler is Chief Meteorologist for WDAY, a position he has had since May of 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South, in Louisiana and Alabama, and cites his family's move to the Midwest as important to developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and achieved a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked about a year at WOI-TV in central Iowa before moving to Fargo and WDAY..

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John Wheeler: Should last week's Gulf Coast storm be called 'once in a lifetime?'

Many long-term weather stations did break snowstorm total records, and many of the previous records were set in the Great Gulf Coast snowstorm of 1899.