Mercury Hovers Around 20 Below Early Saturday
The season’s most severe cold wave held Southern Illinois in its grip Saturday following a stormy night which covered the entire southern tip of the state with a blanket of snow and mercury tumbled down to eighteen below zero.
Beginning with a fine snow Friday afternoon the snowfall reached blizzard proportions by nightfall to the accompaniment of a rapid drop in temperature. The mercury which registered seven degrees above zero at six o’clock stood at the zero mark at eight o’clock and continued to fall until seven thirty Saturday morning when it began slowly to rise again.
Thermometers of the Central Illinois Public Service Company at the division office here and its power station at Grand Tower and Muddy stood at 14 degrees below at seven. The chart automatically recorded the change in temperature throughout the night, recording that the ten degree below zero mark was reached at 1 a.m.
Unofficial thermometers about town registered as low as twenty degrees below at seven o’clock.
Druggist L.R. Hart of Creal Springs telephoned Saturday morning that he had just received a report from the keeper of the government gauge at New Burnside, the nearest official recording station to Marion and that the coldest recorded there was 21 ½ degrees below zero. This thermometer is fully exposed and subject to the wind more than those in the city.
The extreme cold and the danger of driving due to the snow packed pavements caused many persons to walk to work Friday morning. With a minimum of vehicles on the street, many of them were being towed because they couldn’t be started otherwise. The snow packed on the highways made driving treacherous in places where it had accumulated, although the snow storm of Friday night did not pile up the immense drifts which featured the first great storm of the season several weeks ago.
Maintenance men with scrapers were at work as early as Friday night attempting to keep the pavements clear of snow. In Marion, Street Commissioner Hosea Robinson and a crew of men beginning at seven o’clock Saturday morning rapidly cleared the snow from the sidewalks in the business district.
While the snow did not form the serious impediment to travel on the country roads that it did during the previous cold wave, the intense cold of Saturday cut activity on the unpaved roads to a minimum and rural traveling at the count seat was practically eliminated Saturday morning.
At the county court house a crew of men worked until 4 a.m. Saturday installing a new heating plant which arrived Friday by truck from St. Louis. While the snow swirled about the county building and the mercury continued to fall, the men worked in the cold basement junking the old heating plant and erecting the new one. It was hoped that the new furnace could be connected with the heating system of the building in time for firing late Saturday.
Meantime, the court house officers operated with skeleton forces and in reduced quarters. Some of the rooms remained closed while the best temperature that was maintained in other rooms by the use of gasoline and electric heaters was 46 above zero at nine o’clock.
Telephone service to St. Louis was interrupted Saturday morning although local service was reported uninterrupted by the snow. Telegraph wires were reported open also.
According to records maintained over a long period of years by J.L.D. Hartwell, this is not the coldest weather we have had. On Saturday, January 5, 1884, his thermometer registered 26 below zero.
(Marion Daily Republican, January 18, 1930)