Boston. June 4.—(AP)—Winter lingering in the lap of summer brought frosts and low temperatures to various parts of New England today. Killing frosts nipped tender garden crops, causing losses to gardeners and farmers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
While frosts were reported in central and western Massachusetts, the mercury sank dangerously near the freezing point in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. Ground temperatures as low as eight degrees below the freezing point were recorded in the cranberry bog region of southeastern Massachusetts.
The lowest temperature reported to the Boston weather bureau was a bog reading of 22 degrees at Halifax, Mass. In the same general region other temperatures taken at the surface of the ground were:
Pembroke 28, South Carver 29, Norton 31.
Weather bureau readings taken on sheltered thermometers elsewhere showed 38 degrees at Greenville, Me., 42 degrees at Concord, N. H., and 44 degrees at Northfield, Vt. Boston recorded a low reading of 46 degrees and the Bluehill observatory reported a temperature five degrees lower.
But unofficial readings on less sheltered thermometers showed 34 degrees near Springfield, Mass., and 36 at Warren, where there was a white frost. South Barre, Mass., reported one of the heaviest frosts ever seen at this time of the year. Barre Plains residents said the temperature there was 26 degrees and that young garden plants had been killed by the frost.
Farmers in various parts of Rhode Island said that crops well up were hard hit by killing frosts. Carolina, R. I., reported a morning temperature of 34 degrees. One farmer said his entire crop of beans had been lost. Coventry suffered a light frost.
At the Bluehill observatory it was explained that the situation is not unprecedented. New England is free from frosts only one month in the year—July. The observatory has records of a frost as late as June 19.
Daily Kennebec Journal, Augusta, ME, June 5, 1926
