Parking Lot Construction: As part of our ongoing work to maintain and improve Central Library, the parking lot will be closed for construction from Tuesday, July 28, to Saturday, August 1. Visit the Central Library page for more details. 

Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

Local History

Weather

TWISTER!

On Tuesday, 13 May 1980, a tornado struck the heart of Kalamazoo, Michigan. The F3 storm, with winds of 150-175 miles per hour, first touched down at 4 pm eight miles west of the city limits and rapidly moved eastward through downtown ....

Blizzard of 1967

Eleven years to the day before “The Great Blizzard of 1978,” a massive winter storm of historic proportion engulfed the upper Midwest and brought much of southern lower Michigan to a standstill. Folks called it “The ’67 Storm.”

Floods in Kalamazoo

Heavy spring rains and runoff from melting snow have submerged Kalamazoo's lowland areas since the 1800s, including the great flood of 1904, called the “worst flood ever known in the history of the city.”

The Great Blizzard of 1978

Two years before Kalamazoo’s devastating 1980 tornado, a storm of a different sort brought much of the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions to a standstill. People still refer to this historic winter storm as the Great Blizzard of 1978.

Tornado of 1834

In a series of articles published in 1880 in the Kalamazoo Gazette , Caroline Booher Hudson (1828-1886) describes in rather vivid detail a tornado that ripped through the village of Kalamazoo during the early morning hours of 18 October 1843.