Cold Christmas this year

BY LAURA HEWELL
THE TOCCOA RECORD
    Bundle up Toccoa.
    Christmas this year is going to be cold although not quite as cold as the record year of 1983.
    According to the Farmer’s Almanac, 1983 was a record year for cold weather across the United States with some places getting down as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit and no that wasn’t in Alaska, it was in Montana.
    Here in Toccoa the low temperature was recorded as 2.1 degrees and the high was 4 degrees Fahrenheit with mean wind speeds of 14.38 mph.
    However that year was not a white Christmas unless you take into account the frozen water from all the ruptured waterlines.
    The Dec. 29, 1983 issue of The Toccoa Record published an article detailing all the pipe damage to homes, business, and even some firemen that slipped on ice while attempting to battle a fire.
    The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported in 2010 as the first year since 1882 that Atlanta had seen a white Christmas with 1.2 inches of snow.
   That year,  Athens reported two inches of snow.
    Stephens County had anywhere from four to six inches of snow that Christmas, according to the National Weather service out of Peachtree City.
    This holiday weekend, the best chance of snow looks to be tonight (Thursday, Dec. 22) with a low of 28 degrees and a 70 percent  chance of rain or snow into tomorrow (Friday, Dec. 23) where the high will be 29 and low 11 with a 1 percent chance of rain or snow.
    The forecast for Christmas Eve is a high of 31 and low of 17 with no chance of rain or snow.
   The Christmas Day forecast is a high of 40 and low of 21 also with no chance of rain or snow.
     This forecast information was as of 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 20, from the Weather Channel.
     So much for the coldest Christmases. How about the warmest?
   The warmest Christmas on record was in 2015 when temperatures across the state ranged from 75 to 78 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Day.
   Many people probably remember wearing short sleeve shirts that Christmas.
    The coldest day on record for Toccoa was on Jan. 30, 1966 and it was a record of minus five degrees Fah-renheit.
     With temperatures expected to be so low what can you do to be ready?
   There is information from the National Weather Service website that deals with what you can do to be prepared for winter weather.
     Just go to weather.gov/safety/winter to review that information.
     Toccoa’s water department director Harry Scott also suggested the recommendations made on the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency website https://gema.georgia.gov/plan-prepare/storms-disasters/winter.

(Image by Nina Garman from Pixabay)