FARMINGTON – When a few snowflakes fell from the sky upon a group of boys on a Chester Greenwood Day float Saturday, everyone nearby began cheering.

Everybody, that is, but Hope Gustafson, 30, who peered up at the sky in trepidation.

Having moved to Maine from Oklahoma the year before, Gustafson had committed to taking part in the Polar Bear Club’s annual Chester Greenwood Day Dip. The deal was, she’d do the dip if her husband, Dave, went skydiving with a friend.

Saturday morning, the mercury was slowly falling, and she was already cold.

Fast forward four hours, and Gustafson was standing in sweats and a towel by Clearwater Lake, looking as nervous as the other 20 to 30 people about to make the jump. “I’m really nervous and scared,” she said.

Fifty to 80 people showed up to watch the fun. It was the 20th annual dip, with 70-year-olds jumping in right next to preteens.

Seventy-year-old Richard Waddell has been a Polar Bear for 18 years. The water is cold – no doubt about it. “Oh, it’s a shock,” he said. “It’s a shock.”

But after years of doing the dip when the weather outside really was frightful – one year the group had to cut a hole in the ice and it was 12 degrees out – this year’s dip wasn’t looking to be as painful for him as it would be for first-timer Gustafson.

Still, before the Chester Greenwood Day parade around 10:30 a.m., as snow flurries began, he admitted a little fear. “I’d probably be stupid if I said I hoped it got colder,” he said.

For Wynn Meyer, 16, and his friend Sam Mungin, also 16, the dip was becoming a tradition. Meter started doing it when he was 10, and Jungian followed a year later.

“My dad did it,” Meter said, in explanation. He does it now mostly because he’s done it so many times before.

“And for bragging rights,” Jungian said.

15 year-old Margin Hall said she does it as a way of proving herself and welcoming in winter. “It’s so cold, I can’t even describe it,” she said. “Like you’re in a freezer.”

Just after 3 p.m., everybody jumped in, some cannonballing, others shrieking.

Afterwards, University of Maine at Farmington professor Drew Baritone ran across the small lawn in front of the lake, sopping wet. He was doing it to commemorate his 50th birthday, he said, with a post-jump grin.

Gustafson stood wrapped in a owl and a hat, laughing with a friend. “Josh, it was awesome,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe at all, it was so cold,” she added. That didn’t seem to faze her much.