This is fascinating. Many of events he mentioned are probably found referenced or documented in terms of newspaper articles on the Barber County, Kansas: History & Genealogy web site:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ksbarber/index.html

The site has a dedicated site search engine which searchs only the site, not the entire net:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ksbarber/search.html

Here are the search results for the word snow:

http://tinyurl.com/29rntg

One example of how events in the diary are documented in pages on the site is:

(diary entry) "10-2-1882 ulu maxson of barber co. killed by lighting"

See this news article from The Barber County Index, October 6, 1882, about the death of Ulysses Maxon from being struck by lightning while riding a horse and a photo of his gravestone in the Lake City Cemetery, Lake City, Kansas, here:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ksbarber/maxon_u.html

See the page about "Blizzards in Comanche and Barber Counties, Kansas", for C.F. Spicer's account of the 1885 blizzard mentioned by Samuel Slack, Jr. in his journal:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ksbarber/blizzards.html

I'm looking forward to reading more of the journal. Thanks very much for what you have posted so far.

Jerry