The March hare of 1960

Ever since arriving at the Post many years ago, I've heard people talk about the three consecutive Wednesdays in March when it snowed.

Jan Trexler at the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce sent me an e-mail Tuesday asking what year this weather madness actually occurred. She said several people had called the Chamber with the same question.

I guess they have cabin fever from the weekend snow and ice, which started last Friday.

With the possibility of a "wintry mix" in the forecast again Friday, maybe folks think we have another streak going.

For some reason, I thought the famous March Wednesdays had occurred in the decade of the '70s. But going through the Post's old weather logs, I couldn't find a record of three consecutive snow events in the late winter of any year.

So I turned to the 1960s, and there it was.

- March 2, 1960 — Rowan County was hit with 8.5 inches of snow, topped by 2 inches of sleet. It was a mess from all accounts.

- March 9, 1960 — The county was covered by an additional 9.25 inches of snow which, as you can imagine, had people in a frenzy. Salisbury was fast becoming the polar ice cap.

- March 16, 1960 — At least a half-inch of sleet hits Rowan, just days before the start of spring.

All Wednesdays, all in March.

"I remember it well," Trexler told me by e-mail later, after I informed her that the year most people recall (or forget) was probably 1960.

"No, we don't want a repeat of it!"

Those March 2 and March 9 snowfalls were particularly destructive.

Losses from the snow and ice on March 2 approached a quarter-million dollars. About 75 percent of the roof collapsed on the J.F. McKnight Elementary School in North Kannapolis. Nobody was hurt.

Lester Bonner's farm near the Rowan County Airport suffered a $20,000 loss when its two-story poultry house collapsed. Earlier, the L.E. Needham poultry farm and the Rowan Hatchery suffered similar disasters when their chicken houses fell in.

The Post also reported that 14 to 15 cars at Wagoner Motor Co. in China Grove were damaged when the roof of the company warehouse couldn't take the weight of the snow and ice. Foil Motor Co. had a similar roof collapse at its warehouse.

Other casualties included a hangar at Miller's airstrip, the Weant greenhouse in Spencer, the Stirewalt welding shop in Faith and an awning at China Grove Fabric.

With the March 9 snow, the roof on a wing of the Kiwanis Health Camp caved in.

By March 13, City Treasurer Francis Luther said the previous two snows had cost the city roughly $10,000 in cleanup costs. This was no small change in 1960.

Rather than give you newspaper accounts of the bad sleet of March 16, 1960, I'll leave it to whomever was in charge of the Salisbury Post's daily weather log.

Next to March 16 is but one notation:

"Terrible."

I also noticed that for March 17, 1960, the daily log says, "Sun's out, and spring does look possible."

It was sort of fun to skim through the weather logs and stories from 1960. By chance I came across the all-time record low temperature and the record amount of snowfall — both of which, I think, hold up today.

On Jan. 28, 1940, the temperature in Rowan County fell to minus 11. Wow.

And, of course, who could forget the snow of March 2, 1927? It was 21 inches, maybe more, depending on where you lived in Rowan County.

What is it about March and snow here?

All I know is, I can't wait to write one thing:

"Sun's out, and spring does look possible."

A version of this column originally appeared on Mark Wineka's blog, "Wineka's World," which can be found at www.salisburypost.com.