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Vermont’s coldest day: December 30, 1933
by Timothy Page
On December 30, 1933, the state of Vermont experienced the coldest day on record, with temperatures in the town of Bloomfield plummeting to a staggering fifty degrees below zero (-50°F or -45.6°C). This extreme cold snap remains the lowest official temperature ever recorded in the state.
According to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), this extreme cold was part of a larger cold snap that affected the northeastern United States during the winter of 1933-1934.
Bloomfield, a small town located in Essex County, is situated in a valley, which can contribute to cold air pooling and extreme temperature drops. The town’s location, combined with the cold air mass that gripped the region, led to the record-low temperature reading.
The extreme cold had a significant impact on the daily lives of Vermonters. Many residents were forced to stay indoors, as the cold weather made outdoor activities extremely hazardous. The cold also caused widespread damage to buildings, pipes, and other infrastructure, as the water inside them froze and expanded.
Reflecting on those frigid days, Ray Daley, a local worker at the time, recounted his experiences from that winter in an account he wrote in 1983. On the night of December 28, he was called to help patrol electrical lines as the cold intensified. Despite the U.S. Weather Bureau reporting temperatures at -50°F, local lore suggested it felt even colder, with one worker claiming it was “two clapboards below the thermometer.”
Daley recalled the camaraderie among workers as they braved the elements to repair downed lines, sharing heated rocks to stay warm and enjoying coffee and doughnuts provided by a local resident after a long night of work. The conditions were so severe that trees cracked like rifle shots in the cold.
The extreme cold also had a significant impact on the state’s agriculture. Many farmers reported substantial losses, as the cold weather damaged or destroyed crops, livestock, and equipment.
Interestingly, research has shown that cold weather claims significantly more lives globally than hot weather. According to a 2015 study published in The Lancet, an estimated 7.7% of all deaths worldwide are attributable to cold, compared to just 0.4% for heat1. This underscores the critical importance of being vigilant and prepared for extreme cold snaps, like the one that gripped Vermont in 1933.
- Gasparrini, A., Guo, Y., Hashizume, M., Lavigne, E., Zanobetti, A., Schwartz, J., & Armstrong, B. (2015). Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, 386(9991), 369-375. ↩︎
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I hope we don’t see this again anytime soon, as I wouldn’t want to spoil the global warming nonsense, Vermont and its climate crusaders would go into a complete meltdown, it would be another hole in their rhetoric !!
But wait the USSDA has said this can’t happen they have changed all of Vermont’s hardiness zones. This would fly in the face of that……….
THE COLDEST NIGHT
By Ellin Anderson
“As the day lengthens, the cold strengthens.” — English saying
The birds retired hastily,
The roads are clear of cars,
And now the land sees nobody
Except the clear-eyed stars
That gaze upon our earthly plight,
Too cold to shed a ray
On what may be the longest night
To crown a winter’s day.
Behind us is the Yuletide feast;
Some tinsel in the sun
Will glitter golden, and at least
Remind us of the fun
That started once upon a star
Above a stable door:
The most beloved avatar
The heavens ever wore.
Now step outside, and feel the burning
Ice that grips your face.
Out in the cold, forever turning,
We are in deep space
Adrift beside another star,
Most cherished when least near:
A stable’s warmth, however far
From those who huddle here.
amazing how you write these poems, Ellin
More and more studies giving us the real data on ‘climate change’ having to do with cyclical (doh!) sun activity, and the homeostatic nature of our world to self-regulate and self-adjust…
Leave it alone stoopids!
God has this!!!
The temperature is very cold, -50 degrees is nothing compared to the chill of Marxism in this state, here is a wonderful video that explains how vastly wrong our current Vermont government culture is going.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1872855650394619946
This video is also why, if people knew how much money is being taken from their wallets, if there was clear accounting in our state, the revolution, the change of mindset would happen easily, peacefully and overnight.
The government employees of the state would also be on the band wagon, if they knew how much of THEIR pay the government is wasting on the benefits, they receive, our state would once again become the dominant, independent, frugal, thrifty citizenship we are known for and our constitution outlines.
All we need is sun. All we need is sunlight on those dark November days, where we’ve only seen clouds and grey for weeks on end.
There is so much money, coordination, lies and deception within our state, within our system to keep people misinformed and fighting so we can’t solve our own problems.
Peace and cooperation are the arch enemy the kryptonite of marxism, may our state be filled with the former and rid ourselves of the latter.
If that happens again, I’d be hanging close to my woodstove fighting back the encroaching attic blast, while others will be calling in search of a service tech to “fix” their heat pump which just isn’t working…hmmmmm. Meanwhile their Tesla appears to only have about a 1.5 mile range, if that! 😀 On that note, many of us ICE auto owners might be in the same boat as many wouldn’t start unless garaged.