Posted on 01/19/2007 3:21:02 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Rebecca, Paul and Gordon Griffeth and Joey Stefko used charcoal briquettes as buttons, a carrot as a nose and twigs as arms for their snowman. They added a University of Florida baseball cap and a pipe. Tribune file photo by AUGUST STAEBLER(1977)
Folks across the Tampa Bay area awoke the morning of Jan. 19, 1977, to the sight of something that has not been seen in these parts in the 30 years since.
Snow covered the ground, vehicles and roads.
"I looked out the front window of our house and thought I'd died and gone to heaven," said former Pasco County Commissioner Sylvia Young of Darby. "I woke up everybody in the house. It was snowing in Florida!"
Snowball fights broke out in her yard once the children were dressed, and snowmen came to life from Dunedin to Tampa.
The five Griffeth children and neighbor Joey Stefko rolled snowballs to make the Frosty of Newport Circle in north Tampa.
"We all looked outside the big picture window at the snow and ran outside to play," said Gordon Griffeth, 43, now a Tampa Electric project administrator living in Dover. "It was the first time I'd seen snow.
"I saw a school bus pull up and stop next to the golf course by our house, and all the kids evacuated the bus and ran onto the golf course to play. It was so beautiful, so neat. We started making a snowman and somebody called The Tampa Tribune to shoot a picture."
They put a University of Florida baseball cap on its head and his dad's pipe in its mouth. Charcoal briquettes served as eyes and buttons, and a small carrot became its nose. Its arms were twigs.
"I told the kids, 'It's going to melt before Daddy gets home from work,'" said their mother, Esther Griffeth, who still lives in the house. "So I said, 'Let's put it in the freezer.'"
The snowman remained in the big chest freezer in the garage for about two years, with its head separated for a better fit. 'We All Looked In Wonderment'
The snowfall of less than one inch was Tampa's first in 15 years, and the white stuff fell all the way from Pensacola to Homestead, just 25 miles north of the bridge to the Florida Keys. The cold weather, which chilled fish in Tampa Bay with water temperatures of 50 degrees and air temperatures in the 20s, was nothing compared to the frigid weather up north. Cincinnati recorded a record 28 degrees below zero, and the Ohio River froze.
"We all looked in wonderment at the snow," said Doug Snow of Tampa. "Some people told me, 'Snow, you brought this on!'"
Gaye Tibbets was photographed by The Tampa Tribune at the corner of East Grand Central Avenue (now Kennedy Boulevard) and Parker Street after writing "SNOW" on the windshield with her fingertip. Another motorist inscribed: "'77 TAMPA?"
All the snow in what is supposedly a subtropical climate was hard to fathom.
"It wasn't snowing in Largo, where I was living at the time," said Mike Sanders, a Clearwater historian and real estate agent. "But I talked to my dad in Clearwater and he said, 'They are making snowmen in Dunedin.' I said, 'Yeah, and I'm Santa Claus.'"
Michael Jeffries, then a social studies teacher at Buchanan Middle School in Tampa, decided to let his students have fun with the snow.
"Amazingly, they did not close the schools," said Jeffries, now an assistant professor of information systems at the University of Tampa. "We were told to keep the kids in the classrooms, but I just let them out."
He roared with laughter and added, "They rolled in it, threw snowballs. It was gone in a couple hours and I figured it was their only chance to experience snow."
Automobiles lost control on the slick roads, and University of Tampa director of public affairs Grant Donaldson recalled Interstate 75 having its share of accidents.
"The bridges on I-75 were frozen," said Donaldson, then a Tampa Times business reporter. "People would spin out of control on them, and roll when they got back onto pavement without ice."Dade City residents lined up outside Kiefer's Pharmacy before dawn to buy film for their cameras, and owner Al Kiefer opened 15 minutes early at 6:45 a.m., according to a Pasco Tribune story. A Picture Perfect Sight
Young said she shot three or four rolls of film that day.
"The hills and the valleys were covered with snow," she said. "It covered the strawberries and cabbage we were farming. I measured it as 3 inches deep, and it took days to melt."
The snow didn't get as deep or last as long south of Pasco County.
"I was throwin' hay at Boot Ranch about 4:30 that morning when it started snowing," said Lou Angelwolf, then a Dunedin High School senior and now a local standup comedian. "Everyone ran around like crazy and we had the world's quickest snowball fight and hand-sized snowman before it melted.
"It was pretty to see snow on palm trees. It was just beautiful."
I remember this article, and had I not been around then, I would give some attention to the "experts" but back then, man was the cause of the soon to hit us ice age.
I remember this well. The Howard Franklin bridge iced over. There were several traffic fatalities as newly transplanted Yankees had lost their ability to drive in such conditions.
On that same day in 1977, we had snowflakes fall here in the Florida Keys, it was the day the all time low of 41 degrees was reported. Melted as soon as it hit ground, but was the first ever snow in the Keys.
Severe Cold Snap - Statewide, January 18-21, 1977
A severely cold Arctic airmass, culminating one of the coldest winters ever recorded in the eastern United States, swept into Florida. Snow was reported as far south as Homestead and a severe freeze effected all of the state's citrus and vegetable crops.
In south Florida's agricultural areas, the freeze was one of the most severe of this century. On the night of January 19-20, temperatures dropped to 27 degrees at the Florida Agricultural Experiment station in Homestead, but some farmers in this area reported temperatures near 20 degrees. Temperatures were below freezing for 10 to 14 hours, and 28 degrees or colder for 4 to 8 hours. An unusually heavy frost accompanied these freezing temperatures and extended to the immediate coast. Both West Palm Beach and Miami Beach recorded all-time lows of 27 degrees and 32 degrees, respectively. Over North and Central Florida, temperatures were even lower, but not all areas had all-time record lows. Temperatures reached all-time record lows of 10 degrees at Pensacola and 20 degrees at Orlando.
A U. S. Department of Agriculture report indicated the following crop losses: Citrus 35%, Vegetables 95-100%, Commercial Flowers 50-75%, Permanent Pasture Land 50%, Sugar Cane 40%. In addition, there were severe losses in the tropical fish industry. It is estimated the freeze cost the Florida economy $2 billion (1977) dollars.
http://www.srh.weather.gov/tlh/topevents/
I remember a bad cold snap in St. Pete around 1960.
Reported snow.
It didn't snow in December of 1962, but the temperature in Tampa dropped to 17. The sidewalks on my way to school were iced over.
That's probably the one I'm thinking about.
A lot of southern pines were lost, if I recall correctly.
Australian pines.
Thanks for that info. Is that the same as Norfork Island Pines?
It snowed in the panhandle of Florida back in 1972. I remember it well; my Mom was down there on business and phoned to tell me about it.
There were flurries in Tampa, Christmas eve 1989 ...I lived in a house with no heat at the time...
When I was a child in the late 1950's, early 60's it would be dark at 4:15 PM PST in So. California this time of year. 2007 there is still a glow of daylight on the Western horizon at 5:45 PM PST.
I understand the Earth is more of the shape of an egg (Oblong) opposed to a round sphere, and also that the Earth "Wobbles" as it rotates. This "Wobble" would cause a changing "angle of attack" of the Sun's most direct focus upon the Earth over time, thus changing Day/Night timing and the weather around the World.
Not being a radical activity to the Human eye, this wouldn't be noticed daily.
Astronomer I am not, nor Climateologist, but this "Climate Change" topic is more than likely a topic for "Obvious Man" than for Socialist Politicians and MSM.
Snowing in Florida in 1977.
Rush limbaugh mentioned that yesterday.
If I remember correctly it was also the 1st recorded and at the time global 'cooling' was all the rage.
I've been here in Orlando for 24 years. I only remember about 2 years where we had any significant amount of snow or ice. One of them was about a year after I first got here. Another was about 5 years later.
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