People were sitting in the stands at Legion Field in short sleeves.
James Spann was six years away from being born.
It was 70 degrees and sunny.
It was Thanksgiving Day, November 23. And it was 56 years ago today, in 1950.
The big occasion was the annual Crippled Children’s Clinic High School Championship football game. In those years, there were only five Birmingham high schools. There was Woodlawn, West End, Ensley, Ramsey and Phillips. This annual game was for the city championship and it was a big, big occasion.
Even though it was a mild Thanksgiving Day, the U.S. Weather Bureau had already posted a warning of a massive cold wave. The forecast plunge in temperature was so severe that people, in general, scoffed. Many persons simply did not believe it and disregarded it
But it happened…and in a big way.
Next morning after Thanksgiving, Birmingham residents awoke and were shocked to see the ground white with snow.The snow was blown about by strong wind and the temperature was in the 20s.
That night, the ole mercury dropped to a frigid 5 above zero.
So…Birmingham’s official temperature had dropped 65 degrees in only 38 hours! That 5 above still stands as the all time low for not only November 25, but for the entire month of November. The 5-degree low stands out like a sore thumb (cold one at that) because the next coldest temperature in November is 13 or higher.
All over Alabama, it was the same story:
* Cullman had a 65-degree drop.
* Decatur dropped from 67 to 3 above zero–a dive of 64 degrees.
* Huntsville fell from 65 to 1 above zero.
* Muscle Shoals from 66 to 2 above.
* The coldest temperatures included 1 above in Scottsboro and 2 below in good old Valley Head.
* Tuscaloosa had one of the biggest drops–from a balmy 79 to 10 above zero. According to my 4th grade math, that is a plunge of 69 degrees!
* Montgomery dropped from 72 to 13.
Even Extreme South Alabama did not escape the bitter cold arctic invasion.
* Mobile had a 51-degree drop, from 73 to 22.
* Robertsdale from 72 to 20.
* Dothan from 74 to 17.
EXTENSIVE FREEZE DAMAGE AND DEATHS
Fourteen people in Alabama died from from the severe cold. One man was found lying in the snow frozen to death on Sand Mountain in Jackson County. The other 13 people died in house fires. There was extensive freeze damage statewide–especially to automobile radiators and water pipes.
NO MORE COLD WAVE WARNINGS
The U.S. Weather Bureau, now the National Weather Service, stopped issuing Cold Wave Warnings a long time ago. But to me, they were one of the best “attention getters.’ Those three words just plain sound COLD.
I don’t think Birmingham and Alabama residents scoffed at such warnings for a long time after 1950!
