Easter weather history: spring snow and deadly tornadoes

When snow foils the Easter Holiday, it makes news, but wild temperature swings and deadly tornadoes are also part of this holiday's history.

Easter is a bit of a holiday weather oddity due to its date shifting around so much (it can occur between March 22 and April 25). Snow and winter weather often dominate the Easter headlines because more often than not, Easter Sunday is a warm reminder that spring is on the way. When snow foils the holiday, it makes news.

Easter snow in 2021 in Switzerland (Flickr/Kurt Stocker)

Flickr/Kurt Stocker

In Quincy, Illinois, The Herald-Whig says: "A March 30, 1974, article in The Herald-Whig notes that 11 inches of snow was on the ground when the church bells rang on Easter, April 5, 1920. The snow fell over the two previous days. Just six years later, the area was hit again with more than a foot of snow."

"On March 30, 1926, 7 inches of snow fell, with 8.5 inches more accumulating the next day. On April 2, 2.7 inches fell while there were 14 inches of snow on the ground, and 2.5 inches more fell April 3, the Saturday before Easter."

More recently, a late-season storm system brought a swath of significant snow to parts of northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota, and Wisconsin into Canada on Easter Sunday, April 12th, 2020, dropping over 10 inches in some places. This had people making Easter snow bunnies instead of snowmen!

As an example of extreme changes in Easter weather, the NWS in Philadelphia offered up these stats:

"In 1970, it snowed in our region on Easter Sunday, March 29. The snowfall total was 1.4 inches at Philadelphia, PA, and an impressive 10.2 inches at Allentown, PA. Six years later record setting heat occurred. In 1976, Easter Sunday was on April 18 and the maximum temperature at Philadelphia, PA was 94 degrees while the maximum at Allentown, PA was 93."

Snow-covered easter eggs are seen on a little tree in Lofer, in the Austrian province of Salzburg, on Tuesday, March 16, 2010. Five days before the official start of spring, winter weather returned to wider parts of the country. (AP Photo/ Kerstin Joensson)

That same Easter 1970 snowstorm even brought 4 inches of Easter fluff to New York City! Temperatures in New York City on Easter have ranged from a low of 12 degrees F in 1923 to an incredibly hot 96 in 1976. That day, easter eggs practically could have boiled themselves!

Denver is a poster child for changing weather, especially in the Spring, and in fact, temperatures have ranged from a low of 6 degrees F on Easter Sunday in 1920, to a high of 83 there on Easter 1963. The city's official weather station gets a little snow every few Easters, but hasn't received more than 3 inches of snow on Easter since 1891, when they got a 9-inch snowstorm.

Snow covers Easter eggs on a tree in Wernigerode, eastern Germany, Thursday, April 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Sadly, Spring is also severe weather season and one major event stands out in Easter weather history. A widespread and deadly tornado outbreak affected the Southeastern United States on Easter Sunday and Monday, April 12–13, 2020, dropping more than 141 tornadoes and killing over 30 people.