Page 118 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind
P. 118
One of the worst freezes to hit Jacksonville was the Christmas Freeze of 1983. The
temperature dropped to 11 degrees on a weekend when many residents were out of
town or at parties. Not hearing the weather forecasts caused many residents to wake up
to frozen pipes. If they were out of town, rising temperatures a few days later caused
broken pipes to flood the home's interiors. Even though this freeze was the coldest of
the 20th century, a colder one occurred the following winter.
On January 21, 1985, an all-time record low of 7 degrees occurred. But residents were
forewarned because it happened on a workday when people normally heard the daily
weather reports. As I walked to my classroom at Jacksonville that morning, the
temperature was a bitter 12 degrees. The first thing I told the class to remember was
that this morning is so cold that if they spent the rest of their lives in Jacksonville, they
would never experience a day this cold again.
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