Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1904 — Zeroed Worse than Ever. [ARTICLE]

Zeroed Worse than Ever.

Following last Saturday’s driving storm, in which about three inches of snow fell, came the inevitable cold wave, and the “dull sickening thud’’ as the mercury hit the bottom of the thermometer, and was too fax gone to rebound. To change the simile, when the temperature got on the downward path this time it “went the limit.” Or at least it would be the limit and far past the limit of any decent climate. The lowest mark reached Saturday night and Sunday morning as shown by the presumably strictly accurate, selfregistering minimum thermometer at the Rensselaer U. S. weather bureau station, was 15 degrees be- ' low zero, fair and square.

Sunday’s bright sun warmed things up a little, but as night approached, the mercury began to go down at the rate of three degrees every hour. At 7 o’clock the zero mark was passed, at 9 it was 6, below, and at 3a. m , the low mark of the previous night, 15 below, was reached. The same pace would have sent it to 20 below by morning, but about 3 o’clock the wind shifted and 15 below was again the lowest point reached. By 7 o’clock, it had risen to 10 below. These low marks were not only the lowest of the present winter, but have only been equalled once, and not exceeded at all, for quite 1 a number of yeans past The one*, time that it has been equalled in very recent years was during that long continued cold spell be--1 ginning Dec. 12,1901, with its ex- ' treme low mark, on the morning 1 of the 13th, of 13 below, the. same ! as last Saturday and Sunday ' nights. But to have as low as 15 degrees below zero two nights in 1 succession, is a record we would have to go back quite a good many ' years to equal. -