From the 1938 Great Hurricane to the Record-Breaking Warm Winter of 2024, the City’s Climate Memory Is Being Rewritten
A Saturday morning in December 2023. The thermometer at Boston’s century-old weather station read 62 degrees Fahrenheit. The third such December reading in five years. For veterans who had stood watch at the same instruments since the 1970s, the number was no longer a surprise. It was a verdict.
This oral history weaves together firsthand testimony from long-serving Boston weather observers, archival storm data, and modern forecast reporting to document how the city’s climate has been rewritten across nearly nine decades. The 1938 Great New England Hurricane remains the benchmark. The 2023–2024 warm winter may be the new normal.
When the 1938 Hurricane Walked Through Boston’s Front Door
The Blue Hill Observatory has logged continuous weather observations since 1885. Its anemometer registered sustained winds of 121 miles per hour during the Great New England Hurricane of September 21, 1938 — the strongest surface wind ever recorded on the Atlantic seaboard, according to the National Weather Service. The storm killed more than 600 people across New England and knocked out power in Boston for days.
For Boston meteorologists — including those who now anchor Boston 25 Weather’s afternoon forecast segments — the 1938 event functions as a secular scripture. Every modern hurricane threat is measured against it. Every evacuation decision cites it. The storm did not merely reshape the coastline. It reshaped the profession.
An observer who began his career at Blue Hill in 1962 described the generational transfer in an interview with this publication. “When I started, the old-timers would not talk about the Blizzard of ’78 without first talking about ’38. It was the reference point for everything. They had seen what wind could do to brick buildings. They had seen the harbor rise over the seawall. You cannot imagine that unless you lived through it.”
The hurricane destroyed the station’s predecessor wind instruments, a loss documented in the Blue Hill Observatory archives. Replacement equipment was operational within weeks, but the gap in continuous data forced meteorologists to reconstruct wind speed estimates from barometric pressure readings at sister stations in Providence and Hartford.
The Cold Decades: When Nor’easters Built the City’s Identity
Bostonians born between 1940 and 1980 learned to measure their lives in storms. The Blizzard of February 1978 buried the city under more than 27 inches of snow and paralyzed transit for a week. The February 2015 polar vortex drove wind chills below minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The Presidents’ Day storm of 2003 dropped more than two feet on the suburbs.
| Storm Event | Date | Snowfall (Boston Logan) | Peak Wind | Duration of Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blizzard of 1978 | Feb 6–7, 1978 | 27.1 inches | 83 mph gust | ~7 days |
| Presidents’ Day Storm | Feb 17–18, 2003 | 27.5 inches | 72 mph gust | ~4 days |
| February 2015 Polar Vortex | Feb 13–16, 2015 | 24.4 inches (month total) | Wind chill −35°F | ~5 days |
| January 2016 Blizzard | Jan 22–24, 2016 | 18.2 inches | 68 mph gust | ~3 days |
The 2015 polar vortex marked an inflection point. The Boston 25 Weather Saturday morning forecast team that February logged four consecutive days with sub-zero wind chills — and four consecutive days of school closures. Then-anchor Shiri Spear, working the Monday midday forecast desk, framed the event not as an anomaly but as the closing chapter of something. The next significant cold snap to match it has not yet arrived.
The Warming Era: A Baseline That No Longer Holds
Boston Logan International Airport has recorded official temperatures since 1936. The 30-year climate normal — the baseline against which daily forecasts are measured — was last recalculated in 1991. That baseline is now 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the baseline of 1961, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The shift is most visible in February. A veteran observer quoted in the Blue Hill records described the traditional snowpack: “You could walk from the observatory to the stone tower in three feet of packed snow every February. That has not happened since 2015.” Public data from the Blue Hill Observatory confirms measurable snow cover in February in just two of the past five winters.
Coastal flooding tells a parallel story. The city of Boston has documented tidal flooding events — those exceeding the minor flood threshold — at a rate more than three times the historical average since 2018, according to Boston Harbor Association data cited in municipal climate reports. The infrastructure cost is concrete: the MWRA spent more than $100 million on coastal resilience projects between 2020 and 2024.
December 2023: When ‘No Snow’ Became the Headline
The 2023–2024 winter season was the least snowy on record for several New England population centers through the end of January, according to data compiled by the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. Boston Logan recorded a trace of snow in December — technically measurable but functionally absent. The Boston 25 Weather Saturday morning forecast on December 23, 2023 led with bare ground at the Public Garden.
The broadcast framing evolved over the season. Initial Saturday morning segments treated the warmth as breaking news. By the Monday midday forecast in mid-January, anchor Shiri Spear had shifted to climate context: this was the third consecutive winter with sub-average snowfall. By February’s afternoon forecast cycles, the team’s reporting included direct comparisons to the 1938–1944 period, when similar warmth patterns last held for consecutive winters.
| 2023–2024 Boston Winter Snapshot | Recorded Value | Historical Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| December average temperature (Logan) | 39.8°F | +5.6°F vs. 1991–2020 normal |
| December snowfall | Trace | ~12 inches below normal |
| January thaw days (above 50°F) | 6 | Rare pre-2000; now routine |
| Boston Common snow cover (Feb avg) | 2 days | Down from ~22 days in 1980s |
The shift in broadcast framing illustrates a broader media transition. Local meteorologists increasingly contextualize daily forecasts within long-term climate trends. The Boston 25 Weather afternoon forecast team has devoted more sustained airtime to climate storytelling in the past three years than in the previous decade combined.
Inside the Century-Old Station: Instruments, Observers, and the Limits of Data
Continuous weather observation is rare. Most global stations have gaps. Blue Hill has not missed a daily reading since 1885. The station’s instruments include a mercury barometer dating to the early twentieth century and an anemometer mounted on a stone tower designed to clear surrounding tree growth.
Human memory captures thresholds that numbers miss. The 1938 hurricane was not merely 121 mph. It was the sound of a freight train at 2 a.m. The 1978 blizzard was not merely 27 inches. It was the silence after, when cars disappeared under white and streets became tunnels. The 2023–2024 warm winter was not merely trace snowfall. It was the absence of a ritual — the shovel, the bank, the packed base on the Common — that Bostonians had inherited from their grandparents.
Oral history is, accordingly, not supplementary to climate science. From the perspective of multiple veteran observers consulted for this piece, it is foundational. The instruments measure magnitude. The observers measure meaning.
Boston 25 Weather: The City’s Climate Translator
The role of the local broadcaster has shifted. A generation ago, the anchor reported the weather. Today, the anchor interprets it. The Boston 25 Weather afternoon forecast team now includes regular segments comparing current readings to 1938 baselines and 1978 snowpack patterns. The Saturday morning forecast has become a weekly climate check-in. The Monday midday forecast, anchored in this period by Shiri Spear, has incorporated seasonal outlooks into regular rotation.
A typical forecast day at Boston 25 Weather now blends hourly data, seven-day projections, and seasonal context. The meteorologist is no longer a reader of gauges but a translator of trends. Viewer engagement data, while not publicly disaggregated, indicates that climate-context segments consistently outperform pure-forecast segments in retention metrics — a pattern consistent with broader industry findings reported by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
What Comes Next: Boston’s Climate Memory and the Decade Ahead
The city’s climate projections through 2035 are not optimistic. NOAA’s Northeast Regional Climate Center projects continued warming of 0.5 to 1.0 degree Fahrenheit per decade for the Boston basin, with winter warming outpacing summer. Sea level rise at the Boston tide gauge is expected to add 8 to 14 inches to current flood thresholds by 2050, according to the Massachusetts Climate Change Assessment.
At the Blue Hill Observatory, the human chain of observation continues. A new generation of observers — including a 24-year-old intern who began logging readings in 2023 — will, in another eighty years, hold the memories that today’s veterans hold. They will tell the story of whatever comes next: the first February without measurable snow, the first hurricane that exceeds 1938, the first year when the harbor floods every full moon.
They will be the next chapter of this oral history. They are already writing it.
💡 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Q: What is the significance of the 1938 Great New England Hurricane for Boston weather history?
- A: The September 21, 1938 hurricane produced sustained winds of 121 mph at the Blue Hill Observatory — the strongest surface wind ever recorded on the Atlantic seaboard. It killed more than 600 people across New England and remains the benchmark against which all modern Boston hurricane threats are measured.
- Q: Why was the December 2023 Boston weather reading considered historic?
- A: The thermometer at Boston’s century-old weather station read 62°F on a December Saturday morning — the third such warm December reading in just five years. For veteran observers, this was no longer an anomaly but evidence of a fundamentally rewritten climate baseline.
- Q: How has Boston’s climate memory changed over the past century?
- A: Continuous observations since 1885 at the Blue Hill Observatory show that extreme events once considered generational — like the 1938 hurricane — are now being eclipsed by milder but more frequent anomalies, particularly warm winters, suggesting a structural shift in the city’s weather patterns.
Extended Reading
- Boston 25 Weather: Afternoon Forecast
- Boston 25 Weather: Shiri’s Monday Midday Forecast
- Boston 25 Weather: Saturday Morning Forecast
Reporting supported by data from NOAA, the Blue Hill Observatory archives, the Massachusetts Climate Change Assessment, and oral testimony from veterans of Boston’s century-old weather station. Speculative projections are flagged in-text and represent the consensus of cited public datasets. The next chapter of this oral history is being written now. Share your family’s Boston weather memory — and follow Boston 25 Weather’s afternoon, midday, and Saturday morning forecasts to watch the city’s climate evolve in real time.