This month, those records were shattered. Not since 1881 have temperatures in April failed to rise above 50 degrees Fahrenheit in Fargo-Moorhead. April 2013 is also well on its way to standing as the coldest April on record, since record keeping began in 1881. To date, the average temperature has been just 35 degrees, a full 21 degrees below normal. For the farmers, gardeners, and citizens of the Fargo-Moorhead region, spring just can’t come soon enough!
The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, is set in South Dakota during the severe winter of 1880-1881. Unlike many of Wilder’s other works, The Long Winter contains far less fiction, and is, for the most part, an accurate account of the winter of 1880-1881. Remembered in history as “The Snow Winter,” frontier towns were left isolated and without food or supply shipments when deep snows made the Chicago and North Western Railway impassable for trains until the spring thaw. The frequent blizzards and deep cold set several records for temperatures and snowfall which stood until now.First published in 1940,