Historic Jan '19 Cold Wave - Polar Vortex Intrusion

[Madtown]

-9 with light snow

[Stormy]

My father in law watches his neighbor’s house during the winter while they reside in Phoenix. He went into their house yesterday and it was 29 degrees. Windows were completely iced over, 2 pipes burst. Furnace went out the day before apparently. Lots of damage. Glad you have someone watching your house.

Oh what a bummer! Ouch

[Stormy]

Good question. I'd assume they adjusted the pre Nov-2001 data to match up with the post Nov-2001 data. Who knows.unless you can actually cruch the numbers. I know from living in MN in the 80's and 90's and from seeing what was reported in MN recently that it "seems" everything is now on the post 2001 scale. But what do I know. I will also add that the Waterloo data was done pre ASOS- and with an instrument shelter and wind dials. Much like the -20F air temp at DSM on 1/ 30/19 was first -20F recorded at DSM with ASOS, previously on 2/4/1996 it was done with pre ASOS and with an instrument shelter. So many variables involved that one must be really up to speed on how things are measured now and previously and especially back in the "day" -- pre NWS- say late 1800's early 1900's. Some of those temps , due to the locations they were measured in - are not on par with today's locations.  For example- -30F in Jan of 1905 in DSM (measured in a river bottom) is not on par with -26F measured at DSM airport in 1996. Apples to oranges.

 

Agreed... A lot of caveats as mentioned.

[Niko]

-4F. Heading down to near -7F or so. Not nearly as cold as last night.

[gosaints]

Suppose to be a low of -5. Sitting at -8

[Tom]

-2F with light snow...we were supposed to be above 0F by now so I’m quite surprised the temps are still holding subzero. This is a cold wave I won’t t forget, esp the fact that it has snowed several times with such brutally cold temps.  Guess this is what it’s like living up in the Yukon of Alaska!

[Madtown]

still -7...I have never seen snow below zero much less on multiple days...crazy

[jaster220]

Whoa! Worse than 1899 outbreak? Apparently, at least in a couple instances..

 

Per NWS Grand Rapids. (note-not final)

 

 

Broken or Tied Records:

(List is not final!)

A RECORD FOR THE COLDEST HIGH TEMPERATURE (LOW MAXIMUM) ON JANUARY
30 WAS SET KALAMAZOO, MI. THE HIGH TEMPERATURE ONLY REACHED -1
DEGREES, BREAKING THE RECORD OF 5 DEGREES IN 1899. THIS WAS ONLY
THE FIFTH TIME A HIGH TEMPERATURE BELOW ZERO WAS RECORDED AT
KALAMAZOO AND THE FIRST SINCE JANUARY 19 1994.

A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE (MINIMUM) FOR JANUARY 30 WAS SET AT
KALAMAZOO, MI. THE LOW TEMPERATURE OF -15 DEGREES BROKE THE PREVIOUS
RECORD OF -13 DEGREES IN 1951.

A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE (MINIMUM) FOR JANUARY 31 WAS SET AT
KALAMAZOO, MI. THE LOW TEMPERATURE OF -18 DEGREES BROKE THE PREVIOUS
RECORD OF -15 DEGREES IN 1899.
A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF -14 DEGREES WAS TIED AT LANSING MI
on 1/31. THE OLD RECORD WAS -14 SET IN 1899.

[Tom]

Whoa! Worse than 1899 outbreak? Apparently, at least in a couple instances..

 

Per NWS Grand Rapids. (note-not final)

That's impressive!

[East Dubzz]

While it will certainly change here soon, we did not go above 0 yet. I believe the last time we were above 0 was around 10 o’clock on Monday night.

[Tom]

ORD has just endured it's 4th longest subzero streak...

 

 

 

UPDATE: O'Hare climbed to 0° lat night at 11 ending a 53 hour streak of sub-zero weather, the 4th longest such streak ever officially for Chicago. The longest lasted 98 hours back in 1983. So long #Polarvortex! So long #Chiberia! #ILwx

[Hawkeye]

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to follow the extreme cold as closely as I wanted to because I lost my internet connection.  It appears the euro overdid the cold by several degrees.  It was disappointing that Cedar Rapids was already -23F when I lost internet at 1am Wednesday, but when I woke up in the morning it had only fallen to -24F.  We failed to break the low max record Wednesday.  Then, CR bounced around in the -20s for much of Wednesday night before finally hitting -30F and breaking the record intra-hour around sunrise.  As expected, here in the city it appears we only bottomed out at about -20F.

[Snowshoe]

So long Polar Vortex. Thanks for the record breaking week of weather! Wish you weren't being replaced by rain.
 

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
707 PM CST THU JAN 31 2019

...RECORD LOW MAXIMUM DAILY TEMPERATURES SET FOR JANUARY 31ST...

THE FOLLOWING CITIES SET A NEW RECORD FOR THE COLDEST DAYTIME HIGH
TEMPERATURE FOR JANUARY 31ST

OLD
CITY TEMPERATURE RECORD YEAR
ANTIGO -6(TIES) -6 1971
MARSHFIELD -8 -7 1971
MANITOWOC -9 -5 1971
OSHKOSH -9 -3 1899 & 1971
WISCONSIN RAPIDS -7 -6 1971

RECORD EVENT REPORT...UPDATED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
833 AM CST THU JAN 31 2019

...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES SET FOR JANUARY 31ST ACROSS THE REGION...

OLD
CITY TEMPERATURE RECORD YEAR
APPLETON -26 -22 1996
OSHKOSH -26(TIES) -26 1918
GREEN BAY(NWS) -26(TIES) -26 1899
MARSHFIELD -30(TIES) -30 1996

RECORD EVENT REPORT...UPDATED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
816 AM CST THU JAN 31 2019

...RECORD LOW MAXIMUM DAILY TEMPERATURES SET FOR JANUARY 30TH...

THE FOLLOWING CITIES SET A NEW RECORD FOR THE COLDEST DAYTIME HIGH
TEMPERATURE FOR JANUARY 3OTH

OLD
CITY TEMPERATURE RECORD YEAR
MERRILL -05(TIES) -5 1907
APPLETON -10 -4 1996
OSHKOSH -11 -7 1951
WISCONSIN RAPIDS -11 -3 1951
MANITOWOC -12(TIES) -12 1899
WAUSAU -14 -12 1899
MARSHFIELD -15 -6 1951


RECORD EVENT REPORT...UPDATED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
1103 AM CST TUE JAN 29 2019

...RECORD SNOWFALL SET ACROSS NORTHEAST WISCONSIN FOR JAN 28...

OLD
CITY SNOWFALL(IN) RECORD(IN) YEAR

MARSHFIELD 6.0(TIES) 6.0 1969
WISCONSIN RAPIDS 8.0(TIES) 8.0 1949
APPLETON 9.2 6.0 1994
GREEN BAY(NWS) 9.7 5.4 1994
OSHKOSH 10.2 6.0 1994
MANITOWOC 10.5 7.0 1918
STURGEON BAY 12.8 6.0 1949

[Niko]

RECORD LOWS:

January 30th

**DTW... -13 (2019)
FNT... -16 (1951)
MBS... -17 (1951)

January 31st

**DTW...-14 (2019)
**FNT...-14 (2019)
MBS... -15 (1994)

February 1st

DTW... -7 (1971)
FNT... -18 (1959)
MBS... -16 (1918)

 

Note: Very impressive indeed. Although, Dtw did not break all time record cold which is -24F. Still remains untouched as of today. Here in Macomb, my thermometer read -17F on the morning of January 31st

[East Dubzz]

Actually, I am just now seeing for the first time that weather data is provided in 5-minute increments on the NOAA site. Well D**n.

 

Anyway, the temp at DBQ hit 0 at 10:40pm on Monday. It did not go back above until 9:50am this morning.

 

That’s 3 days, 11 hours, and 10 minutes at 0 or lower. Or 83 hours.

[Hawkeye]

Wednesday morning, when the wind chill was -50s, I went out several times without gloves to do something with a bird feeder.  It doesn't take long for the extreme cold to send pain through the fingers.  That really does hurt.

[indianajohn]

Picture of the Polar Votex from Nasa

[Niko]

Picture of the Polar Votex from Nasa

Cool stuff eh! Looks like a mini ice age has developed.

[OKwx2k4]

Picture of the Polar Votex from Nasa

Awesome.

 

#ilikethis