It has been a cold and snowy winter and, with lows in the single digits, it may have felt like the coldest winter ever! (But it wasn’t.) Believe it or not, the coldest temperature recorded for our area was -25°F on January 14, 1912. Aubrey Urbanowicz from WHSV explained all the details in an article she wrote in 2023. It started with an Arctic front bringing a few inches of snow, high winds, and very low temperatures. Then an even colder air mass moved in. Houses made noises, water pipes burst, and a report out of Lynchburg claimed the Washington-Chattanooga fast train froze to the rails. “The dripping water from the pipes caught the wheels and with the temperature below zero, the train was locked so securely in the ice that it required the use of three engines to move it.” Sadly, several people lost their lives as well. An article in the paper of nearby Strasburg, Virginia, is in the photo above.