More About Ice Skating on the Warrior

Seems to be some doubt from readers that there could be ice skating on the Black Warrior during the January, 1940 cold wave and during the (Mother) (Father) (Grandfather) of all cold waves in February, 1899. First this link: (Thanks to Jason for finding this)

https://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alwalker/Picturesinhistory.htm

The average low for all 31 days of January, 1940 was 21. A low of -10 was registered at Birmingham Airport. However, at that time the Airport Station was not official. Actually, the average low for the entire month of January, 1940 (21 degrees was 10 degrees colder than February, 1899.

Here is a day-by-day record of the official Birmingham temperature for the last two weeks of January, 1940

18 43/14
19 20/2
20 30/8
21 37/16
22 42/19
23 34/24
25 20/8
26 20/1
27 25/1
28 34/5
29 39.25
30 40/23
31 43/18

Just in case the text of the link at the beginning of this story does not come through, here is the gist of it:

The Mountain Eagle is a legendary newspaper in Walker County:

“Snow has been on the ground ten days. Streams are frozen over. Schools are closed. The big snow that visited Jasper and Walker County 10 days ago is still with us. At first the snow measured 14 to 17 inches. The temperature has been below zero for several mornings. Town Creek has been frozen over about a week. People are skating on the river at Cordova, Linn’s Park. Lost Creek and Blackwater. Traffic lights have been turned off because there was not enough traffic to justify them.”

FINAL NOTE: During the (huge) (giant) (super) cold wave of February 1899, a low of 10 below zero was recorded in Birmingham, our official lowest of all time. The Weather Bureau was downtown. No airport station, no Pinson records at that time. The official records were kept in an old journal in pen and ink with several days on each page. I saw that journal once and it was dogeared. The February 13, 1899 record was etched in about a 2-inch square. On the edge of the page was written in red ink that temperatures as low as -14 were reported in the outlying areas of the city!

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