Christmas Day, 2009, was not the coldest ever experienced in Gravette and, although as many as six or seven inches of snow was on the ground in places, that too was not a record.
The snow that hit the Midwest and Gravette on Christmas Eve this year was unusual and no doubt hampered many family get-togethers, particularly those involving trips into Oklahoma. That area was hit with what the weather service called “blizzard conditions”.
Strong winds caused some minor drifting in northwest Arkansas on Christmas Eve night and the temperature dipped to a chilling 13 degrees on Christmas morning. It reached only into the midtwenties all Christmas Day.
Gravette city crews were out early on Christmas morning and plowed streets throughout town making local driving easier. And crews also scraped area highways.
Christmas Day 2009 will be one to remember. But what about other Christmas Days when the temperature here plummeted below zero and there were as many as 10 inches of snow on the ground.
Checking Records
Original local weather records, dating to 1926, showed great disparity of conditions for Gravette on Christmas.
Tracking actual snowfall was not easy since those records, kept by at least six individuals, often provided little information other than numbers without comments, said Dodie Evans, current NOAA observer.
A check of those records showed there was snow on the ground in Gravette on December 25 on at least six different occasions. Some of the snow was hold-over from earlier snowfalls which was the case just seven years ago in 2002. That year Gravette was blanketed by a six-inch snow on December 23 andanother 5 or 6 inches fell the following day. At least 10 inches of the white stuff remained on the ground on Christmas Day.
Although the temperature this year was bone chilling, consider the year 1983 when the mercury plunged to 11 degrees below zero on Christmas morning. The high that day was a miserly 7 degrees.
Other bitter-cold days were in 1980 when the low was 1 degree, in 1985 when it was 5 degrees and in 2002 when the temperature dropped to 8 degrees.
Conversely last year, 2008, the low was a “warm” 20 degrees and the mercury climbed to a balmy 60 degrees.
The all-time high in Gravette on December 25 was in 1950 when the mercury shot up to 70 degrees. Several years during the mid-1950s and in the 1930s and 1940s readings of 60 degrees were not uncommon.
Icy Reports
Other interesting statistics include that in 2000 it rained on Christmas Day with freezingrainthatnight.Andin1987 morethan2inchesoffreezing rainwasreported,mostofitas Christmas Day wound down, causing widespread damage to trees and buildings. That year the weather observer noteditwas“theworsticehere in 50 years.”This was eclipsed by Gravette’s devastating icy storm in January, 2007, and by a lesser one in January ofthis year.
Three inches of snow fell on Christmas Day in 1975 and there were reports of isolated flurries several years.
In both 1963 and 1966, snow remained on the ground from snowfalls earlier Christmas week but in both of those years considerable melting had occurred.
And so, even though no records were broken on Christmas Day 2009, this year will be remembered as unusual and, by many, as one of the whitest and coldest on record.
News, Pages 1 on 12/30/2009