Laura Ingalls Wilder Got Weather Right

A Nebraska meteorologist says Laura Ingalls Wilder got the weather right in the “Little House” bookds about prairie life in the late 1800’s.  Barbara Mayes Boustead works for the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska.  She’s been checking Wilder’s descriptions in “The Long Winter”.  The 1940 book recounted the 1880-81 winter as experienced in De Smet.  Boustead says Wilder’s weather descriptions generally have been accurate.  Boustead has checked the sparse meteorological records and reviewed accounts from newspapers and archives.  One of the specific events Boustead researched was an October 1880 blizzard that Wilder described as catching her family by surprize.  Research showed there was a blizzard from October 14th to 17th in 1880