Scott

Too bad the West Yellowstone MT station is no longer operating. I wonder how cold it was there?

Current windchill here is -24.

It appears the low was -44. Since the temperature is currently rising, it probably won't get lower than that this morning.

-40 at midnight for Peter Sinks. It's a stretch, but if the temperature drops below -48 it will break Alaska's October record.

Apparently I'm a weather stat addict. Instead of sleeping I've been watching the temperatures fall and seeing records broken in various areas.

Apparently they made it down to -18. Look how much the old record was beaten by.

For the next few days, highs in Denver are going to be colder than lows in Barrow, AK. https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=39.74&lon=-104.992#.XbeWSppKi1s https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=71.2888&lon=-156.7923#.XbeWXppKi1s

Interestingly, there are a lot of places that have large diurnal changes in Utah, but in all those places it's the opposite season that has them. November through March is the least likely time to have a huge dirunal change everywhere in Utah except Peter Sinks it seems.

Edit: After I made that post, it ended up dropping to -5 at the official station.

The old record was -7 on 10/31/1972. Interestingly, 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972 all produced several all time October lows throughout much of the West.

It looks like it, even in Salt Lake City. The 1971 Cold snap did produce some monthly record lows in Northern Utah, but it was more impressive in Central and Southern Utah. Some of those readings are lower than any recorded in November.

And only the month after the historically hot September. There was not much of a Fall this year; it went from summer to winter quickly.

Since the official temp is currently -2 in Craig it is officially the lowest October temp in history. Wednesday is supposed to be a lot colder though so the record probably won't last long. More than a foot of snow fell yesterday as well.

That will make the record especially impressive if it pans out.

If forecasts are correct this is going to be a historic cold snap for a lot of the west. Grand Junction Colorado (which has one of the mildest climates in the state) has a forecasted low of 8 on Wednesday. If it really pans out, this will shatter the old October record of 16. Records go back to 1894. One of the most interesting readings forecasted is the 9 to 15 in Salt Lake City. This would be interesting since all monthly record lows in Salt Lake City are at least 48 years old. This will be the first monthly low record since 1971.

NOAA is also predicting the coldest October temperature here. The old record is -1 in 1991.

I don't know how reliable these phone forecasts are, but if they are even close, next week is going to have the coldest October temperature here in history.

Yes, that's what I was pointing out. When you do are calculating only change in temperature, you disregard the 32. Change F = 1.8 C, NOT change F = 1.8C+32 (which seems to be what you are doing?) Or you can use Change F = 9/5 C You have to disregard the 32 degrees if you are just calculating change. If the temperature drops by 51 degrees F, the drop in C is 51/1.8 = 28.3 C (or 51*5/9). Don't use the 32 in the equation if you are calculating change directly. The 32 in F = 1.8C +32 is only to compensate for the freezing point of water between the two scales. It is what you use to convert one temperature to the other, not to calculate change. If you calculate change, you either have to disregard the 32 (easiest) or convert both beginning and end temperatures first and then calculate. An easy way to convert it in your head is that for every 9 F in change, C changes 5 units. For example: -20 C = -4 F -15 C = 5 F -10 C = 14 F -5 C = 23F 0 C = 32 F 5 C = 41 F 10 C = 50 F 15C = 59 F 20 C = 68 F 25 C = 77 F 30 C = 86 F 35 C = 95 F 40 C = 104 F Notice that for every change of 5 C, there is a 9 F change. If the temperature drops from let's say 77 F to 41 F, the F changes 36. To get the change in C you take 36 and divide it by 9/5 (or divide by 1.8, or you could even multiply by 5/9; it's all the same). So if F changed by 36, C changed by 20. change 36 F X 1.8 = 20 If you don't do this, you have to convert the starting and ending numbers first. Does this make sense?

I'm back to working in Craig. If the weather forecasts are right, there is about to a huge temperature drop, from the 70's to near 0 in 24 hours:

Incredible heat wave: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/90-degree-heat-stifles-anchorage-for-first-time-in-its-history-as-sweltering-heat-wave-grips-alaska/70008741

At the airport it was indeed the coldest March high on record. If you are interested, pre-airport, there was a colder March day in Denver. On 3/12/1880 the high temperature was 4 and the low -8. Anyway, of interest, the cold air was shallow and never made it to the mountains or most of the Western Slope. Over here in Grand Junction, we're 2.4 degrees above normal for the month so far.

-46 would be the state record as well since the old state record was -45 at Fort Logan on 3/15/1906.

Nice. Barrow, Alaska has its 6th greatest daily total in July. 15.0 on 10/26/1926 7.3 on 1/8/2001 7.0 on 3/25/1963 6.5 on 12/4/2011 6.4 on 11/17/2010 6.0 on 7/29/1922 Prudhoe Bay had its snowiest day on 6/10/1987. That part of Alaska is pretty cool year round though. In the Lower 48, Montana has its 24 hour record snowfall in late May. The record was 48" on 5/28 to 5/29/1982 at Snonkin.

If you are interested, scroll down on the following PDF which has records from St Paul Island dating back to 1917: https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/orders/IPS/IPS-4381AB4F-D087-496C-A9A7-8E1BB9F077C6.pdf