"The winter of 1936 became known as the Telephone Wire Winter. When knees and fenders and fence posts no longer served as adequate comparisons for the mountainous drifts of snow that swallowed trains, telephone wires came in handy. The snow was so high that, according to a January 24,1936 article by Jim Pollack in the Des Moines Register, Lloyd Keller walked from Clarksville to his job at the Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls among drifts so high "he touched telephone wire." At Randalia, Miss Dorothy Moore drove a team of mules from her home to the mailbox a mile away and the snowbanks were so high the ears of the animals touched the telephone wires.

Officially, the winter of 1936 was the second coldest and the fourth snowiest winter in Iowa history. Unofficially, the 36-day stretch from January 18 through February 22 was the Superbowl of Iowa winters. During that period, the statewide temperature averaged 2.4 degrees below zero, and one blizzard was followed by another.

Paul Waite, Iowa's climatologist from 1959 to 1973, said the winter of 1936 was "the worst stretch of winter weather that [Iowa] ever had for both cold and for snow" since the state began keeping records in 1819.

Pollack, in his article, described that winter as a 35-day "climatological torture rack." He went on to cite some of the statistics:
'Up in Park Lake, the daily high temperature would carry a minus sign on 18 of those days. Down in Red Oak, 43.9 inches of snow fell in January. Heavy snow covered the whole state January 17, then more snow and howling winds made for blizzard conditions on January 22. Another blizzard hit February 8.'

For days on end, Pollack said, Iowans experienced full-scale whiteouts. 'Strong winds drifted the snow which fell almost every day during the first 17 days if February,' said Charles Reed, the state climatologist from 1918 to 1944. '[This] greatly impeded all transportation.'

Pollack reported that the snow was so high that caterpillar tractors with plows couldn't plow the roads, so they were replaced by farmers with shovels. Near Sac City, Pollack's 1986 report stated, 'a county road crew and nearby farmers struggled six and a half hours to clear a path so Dr. F.C. Jackson could get to farmer Norman Elam, suffering from pneumonia and mumps 11 miles away.' The Works Progress Administration sent 1,600 men out to shovel Des Moines' streets. The city appreciated the help � by February 1, the city's $8,666 winter snow removal budget had been exceeded by $88,579. A cream dealer in Marshalltown, Pollack reported, had to deliver his cream by sled, but several days later, 'his horse had to be shoveled out of the drifts.'

The snow had also stopped the movement of trains. Pollack reported that the 61 passengers cleaned out local grocery stores when the passenger train from Minneapolis to Des Moines met a snow drift it couldn't bash through near McCallsburg. On another snowbound train near Kellogg, Pollack reported, 'passengers amused themselves Sunday night by watching a farm house window, where the farmer undressed to his underwear and went to bed.'

Temperatures were as nasty as the snow was deep. Pollack reported that in Lake Park, Iowa, the daily highs for one mid-February stretch ranged from 3 degrees below zero to 15 degrees below zero.

The ice was 42 inches thick on the Iowa River at Iowa Falls, Pollack reported. He quoted a February, 1936 report in which state climatologist Reed said the Floyd River was 'frozen to the bottom.' Water mains froze, leaving 22 Centerville homes without water on February 8. The following day, 500 water meters froze in Des Moines.

The postal service couldn't deliver mail. The farmers couldn't deliver enough milk and eggs to supply the cities. But by far the most ominous was that in early February, Iowans were running low on coal. Coal was the primary source of heat in 1936. With high snow drifts, suppliers couldn't find passable routes from the mines to furnaces.'"

-from Chapter Six: Snow, Wind & Bone-Chilling Cold