25 Years Ago

Herald of Dec. 24, 1998

Winter arrived on Monday if you went by the calendar, but it arrived Tuesday if you went by the thermometer. While Monday was the winter solstice – the shortest day and the longest night of the year – the temperature reached 57 degrees for the day’s high and the low was 41 degrees. On Tuesday, however, the temperature fell from a high of 59 degrees just after midnight Monday to 13 degrees just before midnight Tuesday. The low Wednesday morning was 11 degrees at the Blair County Airport. The season’s first freezing rain and snow arrived that week as well, but there was no need to get out the snowplows, only the salt and cinder spreaders in some locations.

Despite occasional brief tastes of precipitation the water situation in the local area continued to deteriorate and concern over the drought continued to grow. In response to the increasing severity of the dry conditions, the Woodbury Church of the Brethren scheduled a special prayer meeting at 2 p.m. on the following Sunday to pray for rain.