Weather rambling — Sleigh bells in November

November typically is a turning point in the weather.

“The last month of autumn has arrived, bringing with it an ice-cool atmosphere and imparting a shiver and a blue nose to the chap whose necessities compel him to still wear the airy garments of summer,” The Glen’s Falls Republican reported on Nov. 8, 1870. “Simultaneously with its arrival, buckwheat cakes adorned many a breakfast table, and the head of the family began to wonder whether the overcoat would stand the vicissitudes of another winter.”

November is the month when snow still seems enchanting.

“Friday the snow fell to the depth of nine inches, enveloping the hills and the valleys, the bare tree tops and the dirty streets in a mantle of pearly white,” The Glen’s Falls Republican reported on Nov. 14, 1871. “Several venturesome drivers displayed sleighs and cutters, and went so far as to give us the merry jingles of sleigh bells.”

“A slight covering of snow — the first of the season — fell Thursday morning, but it rapidly disappeared under the influence of one of those cold, uncomfortable, drizzling rains that have saturated the earth like a sponge,” The Glen’s Falls Republican reported on November 19, 1872.

In 1883, Gore Mountain was covered with snow by November 2, the day Glens Falls had its first flurry of snow of the season.

“The forerunner of real, right down winter — a flurry of snow — appeared yesterday, and those who had not put up their coal stoves bethought themselves of the coming struggle with stovepipes,” The Morning Star reported on Nov. 3.

“Another taste of winter yesterday,” The Morning Star reported on Nov. 14.

It hinted of a harsh winter ahead.

“Boatmen look upon the recent change in weather as indicating an early victory for Jack Frost over the waterways of the state.”

Mild weather in early November keeps a newspaper correspondent inspired.

“Lovely weather is the expression heard on every hand, and the local correspondent that does not fly off the handle and go into raptures over the appearance of the forest does not fulfill his destiny,” the Hampton correspondent to The Granville Sentinel mused in the Nov. 3, 1876 issue.

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