Was it colder way back then?
A gentleman writing in today's letters to the editor contributes his recollections from the 1930s to the debate about whether the weather is getting warmer. One sign of a chillier era, he says, was that the ponds froze over solidly enough back then to allow ice skating.
I wouldn't challenge John Kincaid's memory. But the official weather records show some interesting information. (When you call this page up, go to monthly temperature listings in the left-hand column and click on "average.")
The Greensboro temperature records begin in 1933 and go through 2004. It looks like there were some cool years during the 1933-39 period, although the average temperatures for 1996 and 1997 both were lower than for any of those earlier years.
There were some very cold months, however, particularly if you count January 1940, when the average temperature was 27.05 degrees. That would keep a sheet of ice over the old mill pond. Other subfreezing months during the era were February 1934, 31.98; and December 1935, 31.34.
Looks like we haven't had a subfreezing month in Greensboro since January 1978, when the average temp was 31.26. A year before that, January 1977, was the coldest month on record in Greensboro, at 26.65. We ought to be telling our kids about that one.
I guess you can twist these numbers a lot of ways to determine whether it's getting warmer around here. A 10-year average for 1933-42 comes to 57.98. A 10-year average for 1995 through 2004 comes to 58.62. That seems to be a fairly significant rise.
(Added thought at 8 a.m.: While an increase of .64 degree in temperature over seven decades does seem to be fairly significant, it's not really dramatic and likely would not have been noticed by most people whose lives have spanned all that time. It also could be at least partially accounted for by the urbanization of the airport area. Cities tend to be warmer than surrounding rural areas.)
If you take a 10-year sample out of the middle range, 1964 through 1973, you get an average temperature of 57.86. Man, was it cold back when I was a kid!