Christmas is Coldest on Record

Marietta Daily Times, December 26, 1924

Temperature lower here than on holiday in 35 years.

Six above zero in Marietta.

Chilling winds that came blustering out of the North brought the answer to many little prayers that it might be a white Christmas. They also Santa Claused this section of the Ohio Valley with the coldest weather of the season and the coldest Christmas Day since away back when winters were cold and skating was a popular pastime during that season.

With low temperatures of 6 degrees above zero for Wednesday night and 7 for Christmas night, previous records for the low this season were shattered and December 25, 1924, went down in the records of the U.S. Weather Bureau office in Parkersburg as the coldest Christmas since the records have been kept there, a period of 35 years.

The Parkersburg weather-man, H. C. Howe, reported a low of 4 above zero for Wednesday night. On Christmas night his instrument recorded 7, the same as the reading of Professor Thomas Dwight Biscoe of Front Street, who recorded 6 on Wednesday night. The two coldest Christmas days in the 35 years the records of the bureau show were in 1891 and 1896, when the mercury went down to 10 above.

Thermometers in various parts of the city varied greatly and some real low temperatures were reported by some observing citizens. One man reported his thermometer to be at zero on both Thursday and Friday mornings, and the instrument at Gray Brothers grocery registered 3 above at 7:15 o'clock.

Christmas Day the sun came out warm and the temperature rose to 29. But in the shade it was much colder, and according to one weather observer at 5:15 in the afternoon it was only 13 above.

Not a few Marietta families celebrated Christmas by thawing out water pipes, while in many homes the big dinner was held up while the biscuits refused to do much better than "sun bake" in the ovens, a little shy of gas because so much of it was used in other parts of the house.