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| Philadelphia, January 1996 |
That means it will be sliding hundreds of miles to the north of us here in Philly, so we likely dodge this first blast of winter. Still, temperatures have been slowly and surely dropping, and we have had a lot of rain over the past week or so.
With Christmas now less than a week away, all of these factors start to make one think of the possibility of that old Bing Crosby cliche, a 'White Christmas' just like the ones I used to know.
But how many of us here in Philadelphia actually can remember a single snowy Christmas, let alone a few of them close together which would make it a clear association with the holiday?
The answer is as mixed as the weather this time of year. Personally, I do have a clear recollection of a big snow at some point in my early childhood. I remember folks making a big deal of it, and it being an exciting thing for me as a little tot.
Checking back into the National Weather Service records all the way to 1951, my memory is proven correct. There has only been one major snow storm at Christmas time in that period covering over a half century, the Christmas storm of 1966, when I was five years old.
That Christmas eve it began snowing, and it did not stop until just over a foot of the powder was on the ground by the time us kiddies woke up around 7am. What glory to look out the window upon! But something tells me that the grown-ups weren't as happy as I was.
