Remarkable Wednesday temperature highest since 1939

The unusually warm weather witnessed in Thermopolis last week was not only remarkable because it seemed out of season, it was also remarkable because it was the highest temperature recorded on Dec. 9 since 1939.

The National Weather Service recorded a temperature of 64 degrees on Wednesday, which was accompanied by an unusual rainfall late in the night. The record, set over three-quarters of a century ago, was 65 degrees, a mere degree warmer.

On the same day in 1939, Hugh Harmon’s animated Christmas film Peace on Earth was released. Just under a month before, Al Capone was released from Alcatraz prison. Six days after the record-breaking temperatures, on Dec. 15, Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1939, the United States was just under two years from entering World War II, although the war was raging in Europe with Soviet forces battling Finland in the Winter War and the Nazi regime occupying Czechoslovakia and Poland.

The temperature in Worland on Wednesday was just shy of breaking the top-ten highest temperatures, also one degree short of the 10th place 47 degrees. The record is 53, with a number of ties between 51, 48, and 47 degrees.

The high in Riverton for the same day, which was 63, was also recorded in 1939. According to the National Weather Service, Wednesday’s temperature in Riverton was the seventh highest on record.

The weather changed drastically five days later with nearly a foot of snow fell in Thermopolis on Monday and Tuesday.