Snowfalls in Beaufort District's Historical Record

Image by Stephanie French, 2018

Snowstorms do not happen very often in Beaufort County, SC. And on account of that fact, locals tend to take extra precautions when snow is predicted. This puts us in line for a lot of ribbing (some good-natured; some not-so-good natured) by the more-recently-relocated-from-more-Northern-climes area residents. This area has a lot of elevated causeways barely above the marshes, dirt roads, and bridges and few, if any, winter weather moving equipment. A dusting of snow, extremely low temperatures, and/or a bit of ice on the roads, and we natives tend to head home and hole up until it gets back to our usual balmy winter conditions in the 60s.

I was supposed to be representing the Beaufort County Library on a panel "Reconstructing Reconstruction: Interpreting the Epic Story of Reconstruction in Beaufort County, SC" at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting this week but Winter Storm Grayson threw a monkey-wrench into my plans. Icy road conditions between here and Washington, DC and flight cancellations prevented several panel members from being able to make the trip. 

January 2, 2018 was to kick off our new Research Room schedule of providing service Mondays through Fridays, 9 am to 5 pm. But that too was thrown a monkey-wrench. The Library was closed on Wednesday, January 3, Thursday, January 4 and we re-opened at Noon today with a skeleton crew. Many of our staff are still stuck at homes situated on icy secondary and dirt roads. Our trees are beautiful but they also prevent sunlight from melting the snow and ice in our roads and yards. With the low temperatures hovering in the 20s and 30s, it may be a few days more before all the snow and ice melts.   

On average, snow flurries occur along the South Carolina coastal plain about once every three years. (1)  There is approximately a 9% chance of snowfall in Beaufort County each year. (2) Before Winter Storm Grayson arrived on January 3, 2018, we had last seen minimal amounts of snowfall in 2010 and 2006. Because snowfall is a relatively rare event, local media tend to at least provide mentions of the frozen precipitation so a researcher can use our newspaper microfilm to look up specific past snows.

It appears that the record snowfall in Beaufort County remains the blizzard of February 10-11, 1973. Local photographer Lucille Hasell Culp captured images of that event. Six inches of snow were on the ground. However the most snowfall in a 24-hour period was 5 inches on December 23, 1989. This snow stuck around in spots to give Beaufort County a White Christmas. You can see photographs that she took of the 1973 and the 1943 snowfall in our Lucille Hasell Culp Collection hosted online by the Lowcountry Digital Library. (Please note: the images in the Lucille Hasell Culp Collection are copyrighted by the Beaufort County Library).

Image copyrighted by Beaufort County Library

But Beaufort County has seen other significant amounts that are documented in our vertical files and image collections, e.g.: There was the "heaviest fall of snow in a half century" in mid-February 1899. According to Susan Hazel Rice's diary it began as a sleet storm on February 12 and the cold stuck around to freeze the water in the vases she had inside her home on Valentine's Day. The snow did not begin to melt until the temperatures warmed a bit after lunchtime on February 15th. (3) This same storm resulted in the death of Squirrel Heyward who froze to death out on Broad River while his boat companion Abram Scott suffered from frost bite but appears to have survived. (4)  

We know about a snowfall in late February 1914 on account of a memorial written by "A Friend" for Wyman Johnson: "His white spirit going out while the ground was covered with snow, was only a fitting end to his early career and symbolic of the life that he will live now beyond the vale." (5)

Clippings in our "Weather and Climate" vertical file indicate a Beaufort Blizzard of late February 1958 during which a Royal Esso Station attendant called snow "White Rain" and Eddie Boyer quipped at the post office "People are moving to Beaufort from Florida because there is less snow here." (6)   

We'd like to document your experience with Winter Storm Grayson for future researchers. Please share your images and reflections with us about Winter Storm Grayson by sending same to bdc@bcgov.net. We will select images and items for a new permanent BDC vertical file "Snowstorm (3 January 2018)." In 50 years time they too will scoff at how a few inches of snowfall can stymie governmental operations in a coastal South Carolina community.

Sources: 

(1) "General Description of South Carolina's Climate" by the South Carolina State Climatology Office, http://www.dnr.sc.gov/climate/sco/sc_climate.html Accessed 5 January 2018

(2) "South Carolina Snowfall Climatology" by the South Carolina State Climatology Office, http://dnr.sc.gov/climate/sco/ClimateData/cli_table_snowfall_climatology.php Accessed 5 January 2018

(3) February 12 - 15, 1899 diary entries by Susan Hasell Rice. BDC Archives.

(4) Palmetto Post (Port Royal, SC), 16 February 1899, p. 3. 

(5) "Death of Wyman Johnson," Beaufort Gazette (Beaufort, SC), March 5, 1914, p. 1.

(6) "Weather-Wise", Beaufort Gazette, 20 February 1958, Section B, p. 5.