Hey Maine, Do You Remember the Thanksgiving Deep Freeze of 2018?

I remember that as a kid growing up in Northern Maine, we often had a decent amount of snow on the ground for Thanksgiving.  There were even a few years when we got a snowstorm on Thanksgiving day.

These days, it really is not like that.  At least not here in Central Maine.

We typically see temperatures in the upper 30s or mid-40s, and we almost always have bare ground.

In 2022, as we were coming off that heatwave in early November, I am pretty sure we saw a Thanksgiving Day that had sunny skies and a temperature in the low 40s.

The deep freeze of November 2018

That was not the case in 2018.  In late November of 2018, much of New England got slammed with a crippling, deep freeze.  The crazy weather event started on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and continued through majority of the weekend.

Even though we did not get any snow over the long weekend, the temperatures were out of control!

When I left work on that Wednesday, I almost could not get the doors of my SUV open.  I basically had to pry the driver's side door open in order to get in.  Then I had trouble getting it to start.  It was just too cold for the battery (which was not that all old).  I ended up having to have a coworker come to jump my car.

Thanksgiving Day was not much better, and the temperatures overnight (Thanksgiving into Black Friday) were brutal.  However, it did not stop people from lining up outside businesses like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.  Our station staff were out on the streets giving away gift cards, hot chocolate, and donuts.

But how cold was it?

How cold was it in Maine on Thanksgiving & Black Friday 2018?

According to Weather Underground, Augusta had a high temperature of 32 degrees on Wednesday, November 21, 2018.  The low temperature on that day was about 15 degrees.

On Thanksgiving Day, the high temperature was only 15 degrees.  The low temperature was about 4 degrees.

And on Black Friday, it warmed up a little bit.  In Augusta, the high temperature for the day was 24 degrees.  The low temperature was 11 degrees.

Of course, this does not take into account the wind, which made it feel so much colder.

Do you remember the deep freeze?  How did you spend it?  Tell us your story inside our radio station app.