By JAYSON JACOBY

Baker City Herald

Never mind lions and lambs.

March and here we’ll maintain a mammalian rather than a meteorological theme was pretty much pure polar bear from its chilly start to its snow-flurried finish.

Although the month failed to set any records for frigidity, it was by one measure the coldest March in Baker City in more than half a century.

The average low temperature at the Baker City Municipal Airport was 22.4 degrees.

That’s a bit more than four degrees cooler than average, and the chilliest for March since 1955, when the average low was 19.7 degrees.

That was the coldest March on record at the airport.

That March set the standard not only for average low 19.7 degrees but it also achieved the dubious distinction of the lowest temperature on record for the month 5 below zero. That was on March 5 of 1955.

High temperatures this March might have challenged 1955 for wintry supremacy were it not for the brief balmy spell of March 10-14, when the temperatures were, consecutively, 50, 51, 52 and 54.

Otherwise, the temperature topped 50 on just one other day 51 degrees on the 23rd.

That unseasonable March of 1955 prompted a few headlines in this newspaper, then known as the Baker Democrat-Herald.

On Page 1 of the March 16 issue a curious two-paragraph story, absent a byline, quoted an anonymous man who had seen 15 meadowlarks near the golf course.

The story did not say whether this avian eyewitness sought anonymity.

It’s conceivable, though, that the man feared retribution from neighbors who, still suffering from chilblains and anxiety over their frosty gardens, would have snickered at the significance of some meadowlarks.

The story did quote the newspaper’s unnamed source: andquot;Maybe it’s a sign of spring,andquot; he said. andquot;I hope so.andquot;

Other stories from March 1955 detailed the persistent winter’s toll on local deer herds.

A state wildlife biologist reported seeing more than 100 dead deer, about half of them fawns, in the lower Powder River Canyon between Keating and Richland.

As for this year’s version of March, it flouted the month’s reputation for tranquil conclusions by unleashing its nastiest weather at the last.

The temperature didn’t make it even to 40 degrees on four of the final five days and on the lone exception, the 31st, the high was 42.

Snow fell on three of those five days.

One event which didn’t happen in March, but usually does, is the year’s first 60-degree day.

This March never got closer than six degrees to that harbinger of spring.

It was the first time in at least the past 15 years in which the temperature did not reach 60 before the end of March.

In 12 of those years the milestone happened before March 15.

At least one week of April will likely elapse before the temperature hits 60.

We might get close this weekend, though, as highs are supposed to climb into the 50s.