Woodstock, 41 Years Ago Today

Many of you remember Woodstock Festival from August 15th through 17th, 1969. I don't remember it because I wasn't born until 1991, but I have heard that it turned into a mudfest due to 3 straight days of rain. The festival was not actually held in the Catskill Mountain town of Woodstock, NY. It also did not take place in the original town of Middletown, NY. Woodstock took place in Bethel, NY, at Filippinis Pond. See the map above, courtesy of AccuWeather.com's Jesse Ferrell.

According to woodstock69poster.com, these are some of the weather details during the 3 day festival...

Fri. Aug 15: Rain @ 10:30 PM Friday & overnight

Sat. Aug 16: Drizzle continued in the morning

Sat. Aug 16: Rain or at least still wet @ 4 PM Sat. then sun came out

Sun. Aug 17: "Raining Toads" @ 9:30 PM Sat.

Sun. Aug 17: Sunny then Thunderstorm @ 4:30 PM Sunday

Mon. Aug 18: Sunny Monday 8/18 morning

The closest airport to Bethel, NY, is located in Monticello, NY. Observations for this airport began in July 1969, just one month before Woodstock occurred. The map above shows the three weather stations that operated near Woodstock Festival. Liberty operated to the northeast and Mongaup Valley to the southeast. Monticello (KMSV) was by far the closest one, located just to the east of the festival. This photo once again is courtesy of AccuWeather.com's Jesse Ferrell.
The photo above, courtesy of AccuWeather.com's Jesse Ferrell, shows the paper observations for Monticello, NY, from August 17th, 1969. Unfortunately, the station did not record observations from 10:00 AM until 4:30 PM. There is no official record of the strong thunderstorm that people reported, so either it didn't actually occur, or it occurred between observations so there is no record of it. Here is a comparison of the rainfall totals from Liberty and Mongaup Valley, courtesy of Jesse Ferrell.

LIBERTY 1 NE:

8/15: 0.00" Rain (Friday)

8/16: 0.04" Rain (Saturday)

8/17: 1.00" Rain (Sunday)

8/18: 0.33" Rain (Monday)

MONGAUP VALLEY 4 SSW:

8/15: 0.12" Rain

8/16: 0.19" Rain

8/17: 0.05" Rain

8/18: 0.00" Rain

Check out the difference for August 17th...1 inch of rain up in Liberty versus only 0.05 inches of rain down in Mangaup Valley. There must have been a heavy thunderstorm that rolled through Liberty that day.

What were the high and low temperatures for Woodstock Festival ? These are the numbers taken from Liberty, courtesy of Jesse Ferrell...

8/15: 54/80

8/16: 58/82

8/17: 63/80

8/18: 64/79

As you can see, the first 2 mornings were very cool in the mid to upper 50s. The afternoons warmed up nicely despite the rain. More reasonable summertime low temperatures were recorded on the mornings of August 17th and 18th.

To read more detailed information about the weather at Woodstock Festival in 1969, feel free to refer to the following link: http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/Weathermatrix/story/19593/the-weather-at-woodstock.asp