Weather Jingles Appeared in Newspaper 60 Years Ago Today

Here's a neat find I came across while looking through my daily weather record book this morning. The Bridgeport Post ran a feature called Haskin's Answers, which appeared 60 years ago today, Tuesday, April 24, 1962. A reader could get an answer or two to any question by writing to the newspaper's information bureau and enclosing a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The reader wrote, "Please give the jingle about the weather in various months that starts, 'January snowy.'" Quite frankly, I never heard of such a jingle, but apparently Haskin did.

Here is the reply: "January snowy; February flowy; March blowy; April show'ry; May flow'ry; June bow'ry; July moppy; August croppy; September poppy; October breezy; November wheezy; December freezy."

Another weather jingle is "Autumn --- wheezy, sneezy, freezy; Winter --- slippy, drippy, nippy; Spring --- showery, flowery, bowery; Summer --- hoppy, croppy, poppy."

Have you ever heard of these jingles? It's interesting to find something like this after all these years. Click on the article to see an enlarged version.

Paul

Seasonal Snowfall Record Smashed 26 Years Ago Today

Seasonal snowfall records were smashed across much of New England when heavy, wet snow buried Northern New England and delivered nearly a foot of snow (11.3″) to Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford from the evening of April 9 through the morning of April 10, 1996. It was a fitting end to the Winter that just didn’t seem to want to end. In fact, the first snowfall of the season happened the previous November.

When the last flake had fallen, 75.8″ of snow had fallen in southwestern Connecticut that Winter, breaking the previous mark of 71.3″ established over 62 years earlier in 1933-34. Hartford finished the 1995-96 Winter with a record 114.6 inches, which eclipsed the previous mark of 84.9 inches only two years earlier. Here’s a look at snowfall records which were established in the Northeast during the 1995-96 season (click to enlarge):

What I most remember about that snowstorm was a telephone call I received from my late brother and sister-in-law, who were living in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, at the time. That little town at the base of Mount Monadnock made national headlines when the second major snowstorm in three days produced nearly two feet (21 inches) of snow. My brother and sister-in-law were convinced that they were snowbound for awhile.

We also laughed about how much we were looking forward to seeing the first-ever baseball game at the brand new New Britain Stadium just two days later. The Eastern League’s Rock Cats were unveiling their state-of-the-art ballpark against the rival New Haven Ravens, and we were convinced the game wasn’t going to happen. We had purchased tickets well in advance. However, the game did go on as scheduled, and we enjoyed the festivities, despite temperatures in the lower 30s and snow in the parking lot!

Consider that the normal average snowfall for southwestern Connecticut for the month of April is only 0.9″ based on climatology, and the normal average Winter snowfall is about 26.3 inches.

Paul