Low temperature of MINUS 25 recorded in Harrisonburg
March is here and obviously if you are reading this you made it through January freeeeeze and February freezing rain, ice, snow and WIND.
Take heart Spring is on the way and will be here Thursday March 20th.
The answer to last month’s jingle is, “Mr. Wiffle says please don’t squeeze the Charmin.” This ad started in 1964 and ran thru 1985 as Mr. wiffle scolds the customers for squeezing the package of Charmin Toilet Tissue.
This month jingle is…..”Brylcreem, a little…”can you finish the sentence?
Lately I have covered a lot of weather stories and to quote one of my favorite authors “Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it” But I’m glad that human beings cannot make the weather. To let you know when they are calling for bad weather such as snow I do exactly what the Indians did when these weather events happened. Yes, I sit in my TEEPEE and look out.
Last month we found out that the world record rainfall for a five-hour period was 31inches and held by nearby Nelson County, Virginia. I now want to talk about “COLD WEATHER”.
It was the19th of January of 1994. I was just appointed Postmaster of Quicksburg, a wonderful, little community in Shenandoah County. I had only been Postmaster for less than a month, and the Post Office was an old house trailer. As some of you may know, house trailers were not the easiest to keep warm and this morning was the coldest I ever could remember. It took it all for my Bronco to start and on the way to work the Mount Jackson radio station gave a real time temperature of (MINUS 17), yes, minus 17. The furnace never stopped running and then the radio station made an announcement. A term I had never heard of before, Dominion Power has notified the radio station that they would start using rolling blackouts so they could supply power without over burdening their grid. This simply meant that every hour every customer would have their power turned off for fifteen minutes. Different areas would take turns being without power for fifteen minutes every 60 minutes. The furnace that day ran without stopping and I was glad when my 15-minute wait was over.
For the record in January of 1993 the low for the month was 14 so this was 27 degrees colder than the year before. I researched the Dale Enterprise low temperature for that day and found the recorded a low of minus 13, so they weren’t warm in Harrisonburg either. What is interesting to me is that from 1989 to 2008, January of 1994 was the only year with a below zero temperature recorded. But we must not complain for in January of 1912, Dale Enterprise recorded a low of MINUS 25. Now these are not wind chills these are actual temperatures.
Last month I mentioned that as a child I remembered the cold mornings when I woke up. I went to records for 1961-1967 ,and for the month of January each year recorded a temperature of zero or below. One year was minus seven, so that was a cold period.
One thing I want to do this article is to give a shout out. And that is too the Electrical Repairmen. Shenandoah Valley Electric serves 100,665 members and at one time during the mid-February windstorm there were approx. 14,000 homes without electricity. These servicemen were out in high winds in a bucket trying to restore power to their customers. Over the years I can remember power outages in blizzard conditions, and you would see those SVEC trucks with their blinking yellow safety lights driving through the blowing snow to restore power. So, a big Thank You to all of you that climbed out of your warm bed, kissed your children goodnight, and went to work to restore our homes with power.
As I told you I was Postmaster of Quicksburg and met a lot of people. One of my favorite customers shared a story with me about a man that was one of the first in the community to buy a car. Of course, the locals of the community thought that was one of the most ridiculous ideas ever. They constantly ribbed him and warned him of the cold, cold winters they had and how would he get that thing started? They were going to stick with a horse, a sure-fire proven method of transportation in cold winter weather. So now the inevitable happened…Winter, now this will tell the story of Auto versus Horse. The next day here comes what I guess to be a model T and pulls into the local store. Those that were there were surprised to see this little Ford arrive. When the driver of the car entered the store there were many questions, but the most asked question was, “Did you have any trouble?”
“No, No I didn’t have a bit of trouble.” But, my friend did know the rest of the story and shared it with me. What the fellow did was the evening before he made room so he could keep the car in the barn, removed the spark plugs, and then drained the oil from his car. He then took the oil into the house and placed it beside his toasty warm woodstove. The next morning, he replaced the plugs and put the warm oil in the car and it started “without any trouble”
Note: I have SVEC as my electric service provider, but my shout out is for Dominion Power and all providers
Also, everyone invited to Brethren Mountain Grove Church to enjoy recording artist Wade Spencer in Concert Friday March 7th 7:00PM (see ad)
Believe it or not
Until Next Time
Ronnie
