There has been almost a death watch going on for Chicago, looking for an all time new all-time low temperature record to beat the previous -27°F. For those wishing for a new datapoint, Chicago didn’t beat the all time record, but did set a new record for the day:
The official low temperature at Chicago this morning was -21F. This shatters the previous record for Jan 31st, which was -12F set back 1985. In records that date back to the 1870s, this is only the 15th time Chicago has seen a daily low this cold or colder, yesterday was 14th.
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) January 31, 2019
O’Hare Airport was even colder at -23°F
But, not far away, in Rockford, the temperature hit -31°F, exceeding even the NWS announcement a couple of hours ago:
*** All-time Record Low Broken for Rockford ***
With a low temperature of -30°F as of 6:45am this morning, Rockford has broken the all-time record low temperature of -27°F set on 1/10/1982. Records for Rockford date back to 1905. Correction to previous record date.
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) January 31, 2019
Per @NWSQuadCities, -38° was reported in Mount Carroll, Illinois this morning. If accurate, this would set a new Illinois STATE record for low temperature
-56° in Cotton, Minnesota this AM was awfully close to their state record as well pic.twitter.com/gBAqCsyNa0
— Greg Diamond (@gdimeweather) January 31, 2019
A look at the nation shows the depth of the outbreak:
https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1090999851314237447
Here’s the map, full size, click to enlarge:
In the scheme of things, this cold outbreak ranks with the worst according to Wikipedia references:
The 1936 North American cold wave ranks among the most intense cold waves in the recorded history of North America. The Midwestern United States and the Canadian Prairies were hit the hardest. Only the Southwestern United States and California largely escaped its effects.
February 1936 was the coldest February on record in the contiguous U.S., narrowly eclipsing February 1899.[1] It also was the coldest month ever in Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The meteorological winter (December through February) of 1935/36 was the coldest on record for Iowa,[2] Minnesota,[3] North Dakota,[4] and South Dakota.[5] This winter was much colder than the immediately preceding winters. 1930 through 1934 had very mild winters in the U.S. 1930/31 was warm in the western north central states; 1931/32 in the mid- and south-Atlantic states, the eastern north central states, and the eastern south central states; 1932/33 in New England; and, 1933/34 in the mountain and Pacific states.[6] In the northern plains, the Februaries of 1925, 1926, 1927, 1930, 1931, and 1935 are among the 25 warmest Februaries between 1895 and 2017, although 1929 had the third-coldest February of all-time.[7]
…
The sea froze partially as far south as Chesapeake Bay.[citation needed] From January 25 to 28, the east had its coldest January temperatures in eighteen years, with Washington, D. C. averaging 14 °F (−10.0 °C)[18] High winds in some locations caused wind chills below −85 °F (−65.0 °C). In Ohio and the Centralia district of Illinois,[19] the cold destroyed the peach crop, whilst defective heaters caused numerous dangerous fires in Minnesota.[18]
The Cold wave of January 1977 produced the only known trace of snow in the greater Miami area of Florida ever reported, although the city itself did not report any snow (a trace of snow was documented in Lake Worth). It occurred following the passage of a strong cold front, in combination with a high-pressure area situated over the Mississippi River Valley. As a result, cold air moved far to the south across Florida, causing both snow flurries and record low temperatures. Most notably, the weather system brought snow flurries (seen in the air, but not on the ground) as far south as Homestead on January 19. No snow had ever been reported in southeastern Florida before or since.
January 1977 is the coldest month on record in the state of Ohio, with an average temperature of 11.9 degrees. Snowfall was above average throughout the month and the all-time record low of −25 °F (−32 °C) was set in Cincinnati. The Ohio River froze solid for the first time since 1918, halting commercial shipping for weeks. Some parts of northern Ohio stayed below freezing for the entire month [10]. Temperatures did not rise above freezing the entire month in a swath from eastern Iowa to western Pennsylvania northward.
Added: A bit of humor –
I'm still anxiously awaiting Al Gore's tweet connecting the record low temperatures to global warming. Nothing yet? Hurry up @algore #Climate #PolarVortex19
— Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D. (@CongHuelskamp) January 31, 2019
Trapped by bitter cold? Here’s some relief with Deals of the Day
Not a comment, a question:
Read this article: https://www.history.com/news/coldest-day-temperatures-in-us-history
How do alarmists explain something like this?
No comment, just a question:
Just read this: https://www.history.com/news/coldest-day-temperatures-in-us-history
How do alarmists explain it?
I love the comments here at WUWT. Quite educating and entertaining. Really funny comedians here too, like the Penn State shower comment. Good one!
dg
Funny how folks have such short memories… Last year in NE MN, we had something like 12-14 consecutive days where the temps never got above zero F. This included several lows in the -30 to -40 range. While it is certainly uncommon in other parts of the country, it happens more often than folks would like to admit up here.
And yet they still breathlessly report it like it is the first time it has ever happened in the history of time. Every . Single. Year.
Party time on the old continent. Bumpy rides on all floors, icing a gogo, 500 or so flights canceled, 5’000 delayed, usual winter mayhem at Heathrow. More fun promised for tomorrow.
Where exactly is the global region of that warming ? I mean, over the time, we would have been the first ones to know about atmosphere warming, it’ our office after all.
If it is that serious and entirely dangerous, urgent, devastating and so on, then we should get specific training to cope with it.
All we get is junk talk on saving every drop of fuel, environmental regulations and public image. Sorry to say, nothing even remotely related to safety improvement, quite to the opposite indeed.
Everyone click your heels together three times and repeat:”There’s no place like warm, there’s no place like warm, there’s no place like warm”.
Hey, all you good people over there on the other side of The Pond, please do your bit this winter to tackle man-made global warming: Check in on all of your elderly neighbours, and be sure to turn their heating down for them.
/sarc
PS: I hope you all stay warm and safe!
My folks are climate refugees.
Like many after retirement, they moved down south and have blue see panorama instead of white mountains.
History repeats. Typical solar minimum blues.
TSI has downtrended in January and will go lower from this deep blue sun, while F10.7cm today is 72 sfu.
It’s a good thing I’ve got that nice oak and elm to burn for the next two months.
The saddest thing is watching the other side miss the boat so badly, so publicly, so wrong.
NH is in a deep freeze but the SH is broiling:
Australia Record Breaking Heat
Can you reconcile that to a lower TSI?
Yes. Good question. Lower tropical evaporation from low TSI yields higher summer insolation over land, higher UV index, and hotter drier land under clearer skies. In Sept 2017 I predicted SW US drought to increase through the solar minimum for the exact same reason. Last year I predicted blazing hot summer US temperatures for May-Oct for the same reason, and it came to pass. The same principle applies for either SH & NH summer, as does solar cooling for the SH & NH winters. Expect another blazing hot US summer for the same reason this year while the SH freezes like we are now.
I remember when it was called “winter”.
Last eight nights in a row, -40 or colder here.
The wizard-in-chief of the US sceptic community – one Donald J. Trump – is completely clueless about the connection between extreme cold, as currently being experienced by the US, and climate change. If he got off his arse from watching Fox News all day and attempted to read something for a change e.g The New York Times, he might find out a bit more about this phenomenon: https://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/2019/01/31/how-cold-weather-and-climate-change-are-connected-the-new-york-times/
It’s just like it was 40 years ago, what change?
Hahahahahah. The New York Slimes……
Note some sceptics talk about thermodynamics when they should be focusing on movements in the jet stream: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/winter-cold-weather.html?module=inline
February 1936 was the coldest February on record in the contiguous U.S., narrowly eclipsing February 1899
And Feb 2015 was the 4th coldest, at least in my area, since records began in 1897. 1905 was the coldest, and 1936 was 5th coldest.
“temperatures bottomed out across the Lower 48 with 84 million people at/below 0°F” I wonder what the record number of people in below 0 temperatures is? That would be an interesting and slightly scary stat….
Even a cursory at climate history easily reveals that our climate does indeed cycle. This is nothing but noise.