Bob Marshall shovels newly fallen snow from a sidewalk on West Market Street in Lima on Christmas Eve in 1990. Snow on Christmas, prized by white Christmas enthusiasts if not by those who have to clean it off driveways and streets, is relatively rare in western Ohio. In a 1936 story published in the Lima News, a state meteorologist said “the fact of the matter is, snow on Dec. 25 is about as common as monsoons in Missouri.”
Courtesy of Allen County Historical Society
For most of December 1882, Lima had dealt with the cold, uncomfortable, inconvenient reality of snow.
While a late November snowfall meant, in the words of Lima’s Democratic Times, “the merry jingle of the sleigh bells resounded through the air,” the subsequent snows in December made walking a chore and delayed trains and streetcars. At least, though, the persistent snows seemed to ensure the gold standard of ideal holidays — a white Christmas.
And then it melted. “A Merry Christmas! The snow has disappeared,” the Times declared Dec. 23, 1882.
Through the years, snow has mostly skipped Lima’s Christmas celebration, although it shows up with annoying frequency in the months after Christmas. Five months after Christmas in 1882, Lima was buried by a freak snowstorm.
“Nothing like it has been known for years,” the Times wrote, “and although those who have a story to tell which will eclipse any they may hear had exerted themselves to their utmost, they found greatest difficulty imagining anything more remarkable than a six-inch snow fall on the 22nd day of May 1883.”
When it does make a timely appearance, however, snow can cover flaws and make for a postcard-pretty Christmas, which was what The Lima News was wishing for when it addressed an editorial “to the weatherman” on Dec. 19, 1930.
“What we are particularly interested in at this time is a white Christmas,” The Lima News wrote. “Stave off your Winter’s wrath until next Thursday (Christmas Day), and then send it forth; not in a damaging manner, but in a way that will make us recall that in 1930 the weatherman was a pretty good fellow and gave us a typical Christmas Day.” The weatherman was a “pretty good fellow” that year, and Lima had a white Christmas.
Six years later, on Christmas Eve 1936, The Lima News informed its readers that, despite the fondest wishes, a white Christmas was a rare event in Ohio, quoting a state meteorologist who said that New England pioneers who settled in Ohio were responsible for the “Yuletide fiction” of a white Christmas.
“When they came to the middle west from New England, where white Christmases are common, they brought the tradition with them,” the meteorologist explained. “Actually, it snows on Christmas in Ohio only about once every six years, and then it’s nothing to get excited about.”
Except that occasionally it has been.
“Big flakes of snow that fell all yesterday and covered the city in a white blanket completed the finishing touch for an ideal Christmas,” the Lima Republican-Gazette wrote Dec. 25, 1915. “The throngs of shoppers disregarded the disagreeable walking in the last mad rush to get their Christmas gifts. Although the shops in the business district were filled with Christmas shoppers all day long and in the evening, observance of the shop early warnings could be noticed.”
The following year, Christmas was nearly too white.
“Lima dug out from under its share of the heavy snow which a northern blizzard deposited throughout the Ohio valley, and prepared for more yesterday,” the Lima Republican-Gazette reported Dec. 22, 1916. “Today, with the rush of Christmas travel at its height, belated trains and slushy streets are in prospect. A slowly rising temperature threatens to turn the snow drifts into slush.”
In 1924, a heavy snowfall two days before Christmas combined with below-freezing temperatures assured a white Christmas (at least one inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day) for Lima and moved The Lima News on Christmas Eve to predict it would be the finishing touch on “one of the most memorable observances of the holiday in the history of the city.”
“Under the huge, beautifully decorated evergreen on the public square the community Christmas celebration will be held Wednesday night (Christmas Eve) with Santa Claus distributing gifts to the ‘kiddies of the city,’” The Lima News wrote.
On Christmas Day in 1941, about three weeks after the U.S. entered World War II, Bing Crosby sang the sentimental holiday classic “White Christmas” for the first time. With relatively warm weather here, The Lima News again addressed a plea to the weatherman for a Christmas to match the song.
“I’m not asking for a severe cold spell and oodles of ice and snow and hazardous driving conditions – just a bit colder weather and some snow for a real old-fashioned Christmas Day,” the newspaper wrote. “You won’t deny us this little Christmas present, will you?”
After a thunderstorm the night of Dec. 23, 1941, the weather turned colder, and Lima received some snow in the form of flurries and snow showers on Christmas Day.
In 1945, as many discharged World War II servicemen enjoyed their first Christmas at home in years, Lima received an unexpected gift.
“Prospects of a ‘white Christmas’ looked none too good as residents arose early Tuesday morning to find raindrops and mist on windows,” The Lima News wrote. “But late in the afternoon snow blanketed the ground and boldly outlined trees and shrubs surrounding brightly decorated homes.”
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lima defied the white Christmas odds with snow on the holiday in 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1963. The snow in 1961 wasn’t greeted with the usual joy.
“The weatherman’s efforts Saturday (Dec. 23) to create a white Christmas caused hazardous driving conditions throughout Limaland,” The Lima News wrote on Christmas Eve 1961. “A snow which started shortly after 2 p.m. Saturday continued to cover the area late Saturday night with a layer of white, the first major snow of the winter.”
In 1980, snow began falling around midnight Christmas Eve and, with arctic air moving, Lima was assured a white Christmas.
“An arctic snowstorm paved the way for Santa’s sleigh across much of the nation Wednesday, bringing record subzero cold to some areas and the first white Christmas in years to others,” according to a Dec. 25, 1980, story in The Lima News.
Three years later, snow again was on the ground at Christmas, though few children took new sleds outdoors for a test run. On Christmas Eve in 1983, weather observer Ray Burkholder recorded an official low of 16 below zero, the coldest Christmas Eve ever in the Lima area.
“Saturday’s (Christmas Eve’s) high of 6 below easily beat the previous record low for the date,” Burkholder told The Lima News. Temperatures soared to 10 degrees on Christmas as a slow warmup began.
Lima welcomed the 21st century with an old-fashioned Christmas, as snow arrived just in time for the holiday.
“Cold weather and snow came just in time for a white Christmas,” The Lima News wrote on Christmas Day 2000. “And while it wreaked havoc on roads in the region and was blamed for power outages, its upside is all the fun the white stuff provides for all ages.”
In recent years, a storm dropped seven to nine inches of snow on the region on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2002, which was a nightmare for those not traveling by sleigh.
“Police reported snow-covered roads during the day and lots of fender-benders Wednesday (Christmas) night as roads turned icy,” The Lima News wrote Dec. 25, 2002.
SOURCE
This feature is a cooperative effort between the newspaper and the Allen County Museum and Historical Society.
LEARN MORE
See past Reminisce stories at limaohio.com/tag/reminisce
Reach Greg Hoersten at [email protected].
