
The Valentine’s Day Blizzard, Norman, Oklahoma
On , a massive winter storm pushed across the central and southern
US plains, plunging temperatures to record-breaking lows and
dumping significant snow over the affected areas. In the ensuing days, grid
operators enacted rolling blackouts [Sidenote: Grid operators prefer
to call these planned short-term service interruptions.
] and power outages
affected millions of Oklahoma and Texas residents. All 254 Texas counties were affected.
The temperature at the Bureau reached 5ºF (-15ºC) with a wind chill of -19ºF (-29ºC) . By , Oklahoma City recorded a temperature of −14°F (−26°C), the coldest since .
we
bravely foolishly climbed into the Bureau’s MINI Cooper
with a Rolleiflex camera and a partially-shot roll of expired black-and-white
film to document the blizzard. we were back at the Bureau developing the film in a daylight
tank. That evening, after the film was sufficiently dry, we cut the negatives
into strips of three frames each and slid them into a plastic negative storage
sleeve, weighting the sleeve under a dictionary overnight to flatten the film.
We scanned the negatives on . We imported them into Adobe® Lightroom on and updated the metadata and made tonal adjustments. We also did some initial retouching (dust and scratch removal). Retouching continued into , when we exported the final files. We present them for your enjoyment:
Technical
- Camera
- Rolleiflex 2.8c
- Gepe Pro Release 20″ cable with Zeiss Disc-Lock
- Lens
- Schneider-Kreuznach Xenotar 80mm ƒ/2,8
- Aperture
- ƒ/8
- Filter
- Leitz (Leica) K2 (Wratten No. 8)
- Exposure
- 1⁄30th second (OU campus images)
- 1⁄60th second (downtown Norman images)
- ISO
- 125
- Film
- Kodak Plux-X Pan (PXP) Professional 120
- Tripod
- Gitzo GT1542T Series 1 Traveler (carbon fibre)
- Tripod Head
- Monoball P0 Ballhead with Classic Quick Release
- Developer
- Adox Adonal (Rodinal) 1:100
- semi-stand in Paterson Super System 4 daylight tank
- Scanner
- Epson Perfection v850
- Software
- VueScan
- Adobe Lightroom 6



Trees in Snow,
University of Oklahoma, Valentine’s Day 2021
James Garner Memorial in Snow,
Valentine’s Day 2021
Ellison Hall in
Snow, University of Oklahoma, Valentine’s Day 2021
100 Block of
East Main Street in Snow, Valentine’s Day 2021
Sooner Theatre in Snow, Valentine’s
Day 2021