The coldest Christmas ever on the MS Coast was in 1983. How freezing was it?
South Mississippi woke up Friday to temperatures in the 20s and wind chills in the teens or lower, marking the beginning of a frigid Christmas weekend.
Strong winds overnight made for a bone-chilling morning, with many dressing in their heaviest winter gear to brave a final day of Christmas shopping.
And even though it’s going to be coldest Christmas Day in decades this year, this weekend’s temperatures are nowhere near the coldest Dec. 25 on record in South Mississippi.
According to the National Weather Service, Christmas 1983 was brutal for much of the U.S. In some areas, snow blizzards covered the roadways and broke records.
It didn’t snow in South Mississippi that year, but it was really, really cold.
The high temperature on Christmas Eve in Pascagoula was 70 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, but an airmass of Arctic cold pushed through the Mississippi Coast the morning of Christmas Day.
Eleven cities in Mississippi dropped below 10 degrees that day. The coldest place in the state was Pascagoula, bottoming out at 6 degrees. Poplarville came close to that with a recorded a low of 8 degrees on Dec. 25, 1983.
This story was originally published December 23, 2022 at 11:48 AM.
