COLUMBIA, S.C. — Thanksgiving is the beginning of the holiday season and with thoughts of cold and wintry weather on the way what did the first Thanksgiving actually look like?
The Pilgrims sailed to America in 1620 arriving in November where they survived a brutal winter. The next fall, the settlers held a celebration of thanks, a thanks-giving.
We have several accounts of this first Thanksgiving but none of them mention the weather and that’s a good thing for the 1600s. This means that the weather during this celebration that was held between September and November saw relatively normal conditions. From that we can assume fair weather and temperatures in the 50s or 60 in Plymouth.
“That first Thanksgiving weather sounds pretty comfortable and as it turns out its pretty close to what we see in the Midlands. It is important to remember that when we average out temperatures for the Thanksgiving holiday, the holiday itself is on a different days each year, but, even with that being said, when we put the numbers together, our average low in Columbia is 38 degrees, so on the cooler side and the afternoon high, that’s right around 66 degrees.”
In 1863 Thanksgiving was declared as a national holiday. Since this was during the Civil War we only have weather conditions from multiple Forts, including in Charleston where it was 55 degrees and sunny outside.
In 1912 we saw measurable snow in the Midlands, even multiple inches in Newberry. Our hottest Thanksgiving in Columbia came just a week after Hurricane Kate, the latest US landfall on record moved through the state.
This year thankfully, nothing notable is in the forecast. Just some nice weather on the way.