“A White Hurricane” – tracking a record storm…
“Cruelest Month” – storm drops 9 inches of snow…
“City Reels Under 25 Inches of Snow” – one of the century’s worst blizzards…
Are these the headlines that could apply to our winter thus far? How about the winters of 1993, 1979, or 1966? Those three winters were all unusual for snowfall. Looking back over a century or more, the records show unusual snowfalls for the 1890s, and then a period of five years from 1904 -1909 with snowfall of fewer than seventy inches.
The 1920s into the early 1930s saw a dearth of snow, but sub-zero temperatures for several years.
The average snowfall from 1922 to 1956 was never above 100 inches. Low snow depths were reported through the 1980s….and so on into the present. Are we into a Global Warming period today? We’ll find out in a bit…..we think.
Enjoy the various winters in Greece from ninety to one hundred years ago. Few automobiles braved the winters before the 1920s. The horses and sleighs still held sway for a while. Public transportation was by electric trolley on the Lake Avenue line to Charlotte or the Dewey Avenue line that ended at Ridge Road. Bus service was started on Ridge Rd in the early 1900s but proved unreliable and lasted but a few years.
Note the two young ladies ready with their “Junior Racer” sled, and note the small building directly behind them. It’s not a telephone booth….NO ….but it was necessary before the days of indoor plumbing. Drinking water was from the pump, if it wasn’t frozen. The kitchen stove and the “Round Oak” stove are out (unlit). The coal is wet because there is a leak in the basement cistern (caused by the low temperatures). The slab of bacon is hard as a board and the cream has popped out of the milk bottle in the kitchen window “cold box”. Morning in “The Good Old Days”-were they???







Photos, data supplied by Alan Mueller, Greece Historian’s Office.
