January Thaw

 

Here we are in the Berkshires on January 7, 2026 with several days of warm up predicted ahead after a month or more of cold. cold Winter. A "January Thaw" is folklorically defined as two or more consecutive days in mid January above 32 degrees. One source oxymoronically describes it as a "predictable anomaly".

It statistically occurs in New England in mid to late January, but it can be longer, earlier, later or not happen at all. No one pins its existence it on an exact sequence or occurrence of Acts of God....making its timing impossible to accurately predict......leading to local arguments.

My grandfather was a boy in the early 1900's in Lenox, MA when Winter was Winter! As it does today, the pace of life slowed down as the temperatures fell and stalled below zero after New Years. It's been said up here most months have 30 days or so, except January which has 231. 

Back then, with not much left to do except harvest ice and feed the fires, the locals of Lenox gathered at the town's barbershop around a warm wood stove where the topic of discussion after many days of sub zero cold in mid January inevitably turned to the possibility of a "January Thaw". 

He described one such discussion when the arguing went back and forth around and around the room between those who vehemently insisted a thaw was coming any day now and the local pessimists who just as vehemently felt differently. Giuseppe the Barber finally stopped his scissoring and shaving and spoke up loudly in his thick Italian accent: " A-Boys.... I know-a dere is-a gunna to be a January taw. I know-a because I 'ave-a seen tousands of 'em!"

Over the River......

 

" Over the river, and through the wood, trot fast, my dapple-gray!" This likely meant to travel *down the river*, not to go across it as a lot of winter travel in New England went by frozen rivers before roads were open in the winter were the paths of least resistance. Roughly 100 years ago, New England reached the end of 'the 'snow rolller era'. Nice article here about the solution to winter travel in the Old Days. Lots if accurate details..... https://mwvvibe.com/white-mountain-snow-rollers/ .

My grandfather, who was born in1901 in Berkshire Co, MA, told me that one sunny early March day, a group of his neighborhood farmers *hand shoveled* out our road (Perrys Peak Rd) which is apox. 1/2 mile, up hill. (It was memorable, in part, because he got the worst sunburn he ever had) .....Which meant whoever lived in our house was up here at the end of the road for the duration of winter once they got snowed in, back then starting about Thanksgiving. (Btw: "Over the River and Through the Woods" is actually a *Thanksgiving* poem , i.e. not Christmas) by Lydia Maria Child, published in 1844. Original title: "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day".)

Today, folks get upset if the roads aren't plowed down to gravel and pavement, salted, sanded and dry by early morning.

In the 1880's, a snow roller would have been made locally and cost approx. $50 (about $5,000+) in today's money. When my grandfather moved to Richmond 1n 1026, he said there was one snow plow in Berkshire Co. A steam powered tractor the you could hear coming for a week.

Plowed and dry

 

Tractor snow plow on tracks - 1927 Berkshire County