IT had been such a cold January that, at the end of it, G. Harold Noyes, the meteorologist in charge of the Weather Bureau in Trenton, said that maybe the old‐timers would would stop saying that winters weren't what they used to be.

In his official report to Washington, Mr. Noyes said that the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania was frozen all the way across, with ice 20 inches deep. “Scanty reserves of fuel supply were early exhausted,” he went on, adding that when the snow and ice were removed from the highways, potholes were everywhere.

The winter of 1976–77?

No, the winter of 1917–18. It is still the coldest in the state's weather history—at least in Trenton, which is about halfway between Newton, normally the coldest place in New Jersey, and Cape May, normally the warmest.

But before it is all over, the winter of 1976–77 could be the coldest. Through the first 10 days of February, temperatures in the state averaged below normal, even though it seemed much warmer than in January mainly because the wind died down and there was more sunshine.