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MY COLDEST DAY
Winter can be bitterly cold! What’s the coldest temperature you have ever personally experienced?
During the Holiday Season of 2016 we asked our CoCoRaHS observers, “What’s the coldest temperature you have ever personally experienced?” We had an overwhelming response and below are their chilling stories from different regions across the country and in fact from places all over the world. Enjoy . . . but please put a jacket on first before you read these!
In following our CoCoRaHS privacy policy, only first names have been used.
 
NORTHEAST
"My personal coldest morning was -33F in Ulster Park, NY in January 1994. At first I thought “this is crazy, it cannot be that cold”. But on the weather radio an hour later they said Newburgh, NY (30 miles further south) it was -30F so then I knew it was true. No wind, but a sort of ice fog hanging in the air.
My coldest wind chill was measured at -70F the next winter in Elka Park, NY at the top of Platte Clove in the Catskill Mountains where I was living at the time. Of course that was in the days of the old wind chill scale!"
Allen — Farmington, PA
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"The coldest I've experience at this location (Granby, VT: 30mi from Canada and 10mi from NH, with ob's started in 1982) was -38F in the mid-1980"s when every winter produced 3-5 readings at or below -35F. (In the last 10 years there has been several winters without reaching a single -20F!)
FYI: The local observer before me (Glen) at a site located in a similar environment about 20mi west in West Burke, VT) reported a -42F in the 1940's (his obs went from 1930-1998, without missing a single day!). "
Granby, VT
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"25 below 0, 1977"
Rich — Cooperstown, PA
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"As far as I can remember, my coldest temperature was in the early 1970’s in Amherst, New Hampshire. Locals allowed that it was about minus 35º. Sure was snappy!"
David — Westhampton, NH
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"As requested on the CoCo RaHS site, here is my little story. I wish I could remember the exact year, but it was January in the late 1980s in northeast Pennsylvania. The ACTUAL temperature, without wind chill, was -25F! I was a home health nurse then, and we were like the mailman- neither rain, snow, sleet, hail.....nor North Pole conditions would stop us. Somehow my 1984 Firebird never failed to start and as I drove through my workday I saw dozens of cars with dead batteries. It was so cold that the furnaces couldn't keep up, and most of the homes I visited were chilly inside. Never did my down blanket feel so wonderful as it did that day when I finally got home!"
Lisa — Duryea, PA
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'The coldest temperature I have experienced was in Feb. 1967 at Rangely, Maine while undergoing a week of Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. Our Navy instructors told us it reached -34F. I was not fun but of course the nature of the training was not intended to be."
Dave — Mount Juliet,TN
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"For me it was 14 below, hiking in the Catskill mountains in New York State. You"ll get much lower, but I was in this frigid air for about 5 hours."
Joe — Florham Park, NJ
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"1985 in Upper NJ state near the NY border in Highland Lakes, one morning the temps were -20 degrees. My husband burned out my hair dryer trying to unfreeze the water line of what was originally a summer bungalow. Later that winter snow buried my daffodils completely.
We moved to Virginia."
Jean — Raymond, MS
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"It was Christmas Day I believe 1980 I was living in Deerfield, NH. Christmas Eve was chilly and wet but above freezing. We went to bed after stoking the fires in the tenants apartment. Next morning it was very bright and sunny when we woke up. I looked over at the Indoor/Outdoor thermometer on the wall, the kind where there is a capillary tub going outside. "Dang, must have broke, nothing in it." Looked again. There it was, way down at -27 below! I raced down to the tenants apartment and started up the stoves, but too late, everything was frozen."
David — Kittery Point, ME
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"For me it was —42° while on a skiing vacation to Lake Placid NY the week before it was hosting the Olympics. A friend and I were the only two people on the chairlift on Whiteface Mountain; we took turns knocking the icicles off each other’s eyelashes and noses on the ride up to the top. The mountain closed all the lifts shortly after. Two days later it warmed up to zero and people were walking around town without coats or hats! It’s amazing how relative the experience of “cold” actually is. Here in the northwest corner of NJ and the front range of the Appalachian Mountains, a really cold winter (like last year and the year before that) gets to —9° So the Lake Placid experience for me is very memorable."
Alana — Stockholm, NJ
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"I believe the coldest outside temperature I have ever experienced is minus 25. I can recall a number of days with a negative 20 or a bit colder, but I think I never got to 30 below. My wife and I were in the minus 20s in Montreal one January and several times when we lived in New Hampshire in the early to mid 1980s. I had some negative 20s at Northwestern University in the early 1970s.
Living in Maryland now and I do not think I have pulled on my New Hampshire grade winter coat many more than one dozen times here. We rarely get below five above."
Tom — Silver Spring, MD
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"I've been a CoCoRaHS observer for a number of years now, a National Weather Service Coop Observer for many years until last October when I turned the site over to the Mount Washington Observatory office here in North Conway, NH., elevation of the NCON3 Station is approximately 535' msl. I also recently retired as the interim president of Mount Washington Observatory (elevation 6288' msl), "home of the world's worst weather". We maintain an observatory staffed with meteorologic observers 24/7/365.
The record low temperature on Mount Washington was -47F set in 1934 and we also are known for recording the highest wind ever record by man in April 1934 at 231 mph. I've been on Mount Washington during the winter but never personally experienced temperature that low or wind that high. Of course our observers experience extreme wind over hurricane force and extreme wind chill every winter.
Here at my valley home in North Conway, NH., only 17 miles from Mount Washington, I've observed -29F on January 20, 1994. I'm sure there are other observers who have experienced colder temperature but -29 is cold enough for me.
If you are not familiar with Mount Washington Observatory check us out at www.mountwashington.org "
Ed — North Conway, NH
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"I was born in 1936, in the small hamlet of Old Forge, NY, in the central Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State, and downwind from Lake Ontario!
At about 7 years old I remember trudging up the street one particular morning at about 6:45am, heading for a weekday Mass at our local church where I was a server. It was so cold, that I was gasping for breath and was devising ways of inhaling warmer air from inside my parka. We were having another typical "cold snap" and I didn't think too much about just then, but after the church ceremony, I recall hearing "the old timers" comparing the readings on their thermometers for that morning. They all seem to have observed that it was somewhere around a minus 53, 54, or 55 degrees below zero!
Yes, it was an experience that I'll never forget! Ever since, I have respected extreme-cold temperatures. Oh, and yes, since then, I've had a few frostbitten toes from skiing too long in the extreme temperatures of the Adirondack Mountains.
All of that and Lake Effect Snow off of Lake Ontario provided us with many other incredible experiences, never to be forgotten. The Old Timers in town use to answer summer visitors' queries about our winter weather, saying that we had "eleven months of winter and one month of rough sledding!"
Joe — New York
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"I experienced a bone crunching 40 below in 1979 at 5:30 AM while fighting a fire in Meriden, NH. It was a completely clear morning with no wind. The fire – at a small store/garage – was directly across the street from the all-volunteer fire station. Pumps froze on some of the fire trucks and those who were manning the hoses were completely covered with ice. When I took off my bunker coat, I was able to stand it up because it was as stiff as a sheet of plywood. Unfortunately, the fire got going long before we got the call and the building was completely leveled. A few of the volunteers got frost bite. It was the second time that winter that Meriden saw -40°."
Bruce — New London, NH
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"I've been recording weather stats for 53 years at several locations here in New Hampshire and the coldest temperature I've ever recorded was 33 degrees below zero in January of 1994. It was the perfect setup for radiational cooling under a large dome of high pressure. This was in Belmont, N.H.
I joined the CoCoRaHS team in 2009 and was the first to sign up in New Hampshire. I've enjoyed sending reports on weather conditions in my area too this network."
Bob - Tilton, NH
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"I was born and raise in Perham, Maine, a community in the northern part of the this state. For the first 24 years of my life I spent 20 winters here. I often encountered sub-zero temperatures during these cold months. About the lowest temperature I recall was 35 degrees below zero."
Woody - Camden, Delaware
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"40 below in northeastern VT in the late 70s. Also 25 below as a observer in Concord, NH"
Steve — Taunton, MA
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"The coldest weather I have ever experienced was when I was in college at Univ. of Maine in Orono, Maine- I am pretty sure it was February of 1969. Maybe 1970??
We had a spell where the temperature read 40 below on the thermometer( perhaps lower as this was the lowest my thermometer would read) for four days in a row.
During the first day the school stayed open, but something like 300 students showed up at the infirmary with frostbite- the second day they hired buses out of Bangor to try to bus people around, but that did not work well. The school closed completely for the duration of the cold snap.
The climate has certainly changed since then as I do not think we have had weather even close to this bad ever since. We now live in Kennebunk, Maine, and it is now rare to even get to 8 or 10 below."
Peter —Kennebunk, Maine
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"Grafton, VT -25F (uncertain....circa 2007)
-22F in the Adirondack Mountains in March of some year, on a winter mountaineering weekend. Yes, slept in a tent that night. Sorry if that's TMI!"
Greg — Rockingham, VT
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"The coldest I ever experienced was in Fryeburg, Maine, January 1976. As a fourteen year old kid, I had just received a Taylor Max/Min thermometer for Christmas. At 8AM it showed -34F. That was really cold. I had a orthodontist appointment in Portland that morning (an hours drive southeast) to have my braces removed. I opened the back door of our 1963 Chevy and jumped onto the back seat. The next thing I heard was crunch, as if I had sat on a bag of potato chips. What had happened was the vinyl seat had cracked into hundreds of pieces. We actually had to use ether to start the car engine. We made it to Portland and off came my braces . . . hooray!
Twenty-eight years later I became the national coordinator for CoCoRaHS."
Henry — CoCoRaHS Headquarters, Fort Collins, CO
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"Mine was -40 (both F & C) twice. I've experienced - 25F once and - 15+/- F several times.
All in upstate New York and - 30F in Vermont."
Richard — New Baltimore, NY
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"The coldest temp I ever have experienced in my 69 years was approximately -30F in northern Maine in the late 1970’s if memory serves me. A friend and I decided to spend a few days “roughing” it in a summer cottage on a lake. Obviously, it was not summer or anywhere close to summer. We had to park about 100 yards away from the cottage, walk along a railway line and wade in about 200 feet through waist deep snow. In the morning when it was coldest, we had to wait for the temp to “warm” closer to -20F before we could start our vehicles."
Chris — Westport Island, ME
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"On the morning of February 14th, 2016, the low on my max/min thermometer was minus 35 degrees. Our neighbor had the same reading on her thermometer. I waited until it warmed up to zero before x-c skiing. This is the lowest temperature I recall in the 48 years we lived in Central NY."
Sandy — Cazenovia, NY
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"Skiing in 8 below zero in 1976!! I left my room at Stowe, VT on a beautiful, sunny day unaware of the temperature; just knew it felt very cold. A guy jumped the car for me. I walked up to the lift ticket window with every body part covered. The guy reluctantly sold me a ticket saying, "It's pretty cold up at the top." You can't stop a gal who came all the way from Texas. Of course, there was no lift line and I started to shiver part of the way up. I don't even know what the top temperature was; the thermometer was buried in snow. The base had showed minus eight. I skied one run and walked straight to my car."
Carlotta — Argyle, TX
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"I saw the note on the CoCoRaHS home page asking for stores of the coldest temperature we have ever experienced. I've got a couple for you from here in upstate New York.
The winter of 1988 we had just moved into our new home - an 1898 farmhouse with no insulation on the second floor. In December of that year we had a terrific cold snap. I have an old Polaroid picture I took of the thermometer outside the kitchen window - it showed -35 F. We were barely making ends meet that year and had not yet installed the wood stove. I won the football pool at work and used the money to buy fuel oil that year.
Even earlier, in the late 1970's, we had another bitterly cold year. It was probably 1978 or 1979. Again it was -35F. I was a volunteer fireman back then, living with my parent, and we had a call early in the morning when it was -35F. My little Ford Pinto actually started - I had pulled it up against the side of the garage to shelter it as much as possible. But it was so cold the manual transmission would not move - and I could not get in between the garage and the car to push it away from the house. So I never made it to the fire."
Tim
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"I remember marking timber in Maine just about 50 years ago – at minus 17 degrees F. It was a bright, sunny day with no wind. Occasionally a loud crack could be heard as a tree would frost check internally."
TW — Sheridan, Oregon
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"Hi, when I was living in Lincoln VT. In the mid 1970's I saw -20 often, and -30 one time. I literally burned my coffee table, no joke, that was really just a large slab of maple. My house was so warm that night, I had never really burned seasoned wood before, being so hand to mouth with my wood supply."
Neil — Escondido, CA
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"As a child in the 1940s in St. Johnsbury, VT, I remember -50º and wearing three layers of wool clothes to school. As an adult (1970s) I once skied Breckenridge when the wind chill was -60º — only took one run that day!"
Karen — Ouray, CO
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"The coldest temperature I've ever experienced would be -30F in Canton, NY during the winter of 1969. I was attending school at SUNY @ Canton Tech in Northern NY."
Lloyd — Palmyra, NY
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"The coldest temp I ever experienced was -5°F in Newark, NJ during the winter of 1959-60."
Joseph — Laurence Harbor, NJ
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"The lowest temperature I have experienced is -23ºF, with a windchill that must have been in the range of -40º to -60ºF. This occurred in February of 1962 when I was a sophomore at the University of Rochester and was visiting my girlfriend at SUNY Potsdam for the Potsdam-Clarkson Winter Ball. I arrived by Greyhound Bus in Potsdam on that Thursday evening and was struck by instantaneously freezing nasal membranes as I descended from the bottom step of the bus onto the pavement and felt the brutal cold of -18ºF, the coldest temperature I had experienced. The next morning I walked for about 15 minutes from my hotel room in downtown Potsdam to her dorm on campus and did not know that the temperature was even lower, nor did I realize that the particles of smoke from my pipe were condensing on my ears during my walk of about one mile into a strong, easterly wind.
I never felt a thing. I learned that there was something wrong with my ears when I entered the lounge of Judy's dorm and said hello to a cleaning lady, who asked me what was wrong with my ears. I replied, “Nothing,” and asked her why. She said that they were both white. I then touched them and discovered that they were frigid and hard as rock. After hurrying into the restroom to look at them in a mirror, I knew that I needed medical help. When Judy came down to the lounge, she directed me to the Student Infirmary, where the campus doctor applied some type of salve, covered each of them with a large gauze pad and then wrapped them with gauze, creating what looked like a white turban on my head. You can imagine how exotic I looked on Saturday night at the formal dance in my black tuxedo and white turban. The doctor who treated me said that I would probably lose parts of each ear to gangrene, as did also our family’s GP and a dermatologist in Rochester to whom my mother took me in her quest to prevent me from losing parts of them. I didn't, and they have been fine all of my life."
Jackson — Webster, NY
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"-60F . . . Morrisville, NY"
John & Evelyn — Rochester, WA
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I was in Army training in Schenectady, NY in the winter of 1943. Our commander ordered us to march in 25 below temperature, and would not allow any ear protection. The next day he allowed ear protection after he lost half our company to the infirmary. I was o.k.
A senior on high school in 1936 and after being stranded in Carlisle for three days because the roads were all drifted shut I determined to get home to the farm. With only a light summer jacket and low shoes I went the six miles to the farm by walking and running. IT was frigid with swirling winds, blowing snow, and drifts up to my waist, wind chill well below zero. I thought I was not going to make it. I think I did. The only ill effects was frost bit and months of nasty stuff in areas not mentionable. I never told anyone of my problem and continued to wrestle on the team.
Henry - Aurora, IL
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I was a Meteorologist Intern for the National Weather Service at Caribou ME from 1990-1994. The office was at the Airport, on a bit of a hill north of the town. We lived down in town, so it was always a bit colder than the airport. In late January 1994 we had consecutive mornings in town with lows around -35. I had to go to work for 5 AM, and one of the mornings, of course, my car wouldn't start.
So the only option was to walk. It was about a mile walk from our apartment to the Weather Service office. I was properly attired, with thermal underwear, a warm coat, hat, gloves, etc, but I still didn't have enough layers on. I got less than half way there and was totally frozen. So I stopped into the police station, told him where I worked, and asked him if he could have a car come by and bring me up to the airport. Thankfully, he had no problem with that. It still took me a while to thaw out, but I might not have even made it otherwise.
Chuck — Burlington, VT
MID-ATLANTIC
"The coldest temperature I've ever observed at my own personal station was -10°F (Jan. 1994) when I lived in Germantown, Maryland.
I attended school at Frostburg State University (Elevation 2000 ft) on the Allegheny Plateau in western Maryland; while attending school there from 1978-1980 the lowest temperature at the NWS Coop station in town, "Frostburg 2", was -8°F (Feb. 18, 1979) as 20" of snow lay on the ground and was immediately followed by 17.0" of snow and maximum temps in the single digits. After I'd graduated and during the U.S. presidential inauguration day on Jan. 21, 1985, I decided to drive up to my alma mater and got to experience temperatures below -20°F (the min that morning was -26°F at the "Frostburg 2" Coop station but it was the wind chill that was so extreme as gusts were hitting 40-50 MPH. As I was on a ridge above the town, I briefly exited my car to take a picture. It was all I could do to get the door closed due to the strong winds. Once in the car, I realized just how cold I was and let out a loud exhale of relief.
However, the coldest temperature I ever experienced was on a ski trip to Mt. Tremblant, Quebec back in the 1980s. The temperatures were down to -35°F with wind chills down to -80° and, like idiots, we thought it was a good idea to get out onto the powder. After a few runs we noticed that one of our companion's ski mask had pulled up and his nose was completely white (frostbite!). We immediately skied down to the lodge and enjoyed adult drinks by the warm fireplace."
Jeff — Happy Valley, OR
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"Army-Navy game in Philadelphia in 1993. Temp was about 30 degrees with 30 knot winds coming across field into our face! But hey, it was Army-Navy! Hand driers in ladies’ room quit blowing warm air since they were running continuously."
Pat —Macclenny, FL (but grew up in N. Illinois)
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"The coldest temperature I ever experienced was when I went out to my weather shelter for a minute on the morning of 1/22/84 to check the temperature. It was -12°F at that time. At least there was no wind at my suburban valley location. My low that morning of -13° was the coldest temperature I ever recorded here at Glenmont (1NNE), MD (MD-MG-17) in 40 years of record. That same morning Washington Dulles International Airport (KIAD) recorded its coldest temp. of -18° and Baltimore Washington International Airport (KBWI) tied its all time min.of -7°. Meanwhile city locations weren't as cold . Washington National Airport got down to +3° and Baltimore's Custom House measured +8°."
Stanley — Silver Spring, MD
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"As you know, the reply from any meteorologist worth his/her weight will have more than one response – more like a list of lowest temperatures I’ve experienced.
1) -21°F on January 19, 1994, in the highlands of Mineral County, WV. Spending time at my “weekend” home during a cold wave between two snow storms, winds briefly calmed and the temperature plummeted. As the sun rose, the fresh snow was covered with a dusting of sparkly ice needles that only occur at extremely low temperatures. Later that year, vegetation (e.g. shrubs) that had been exposed to the cold was dead, while plants insulated by the snow were unaffected. I had several shrubs that were fine on the bottom and dead on top, with a sharp line delineating where the snow had been that cold morning.
2) -17°F on January 21, 1985, at Penn State University in University Park PA. On the frigid day when President Reagan had his second (public) inauguration, were Penn State classes cancelled due to extreme cold and wind? Of course not! Several brave freshman meteorology students, just starting their second semester, braved the cold to attend an 8 am physics class – one-half mile across campus. It was so bitterly cold and windy that we building-hopped our way to class, trying to stay warm. We made it to class, only to find that there was no heat in the building. Our physics professor, the late Josef Pliva, bravely held class even as my jacket thermometer registered 46°F and we shivered through a miserable hour.
3) During the frigid Midwestern winter of 1976-77, I lived in Madison, WI. The lowest readings that winter were -22°F on January 9 and -21°F on January 16. While I can’t say that I was outside at the peak of those events, I certainly experienced my share of the cold weather that winter. In particular, during the earlier cold blast, we took an evening walk (probably Saturday, January 8) to a neighbor’s house – just a couple of blocks – for a post-holiday get-together. However, with temperatures falling toward minus 20°F and winds howling at 30 to 40 mph, there was no way to stay warm no matter how many layers stood between you and that icy wind."
Brad — Fredericksburg, VA
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"January 2012 , -6 while driving in Baltimore County, MD, at my home station, all time low recorded by Vantage Vue near BWI Airport, +2, Feb. 2015"
Louis — Linthicum, MD
SOUTHEAST - SOUTHCENTRAL
"The coldest measured temperature I've experienced was 8 below zero Fahrenheit. This is in a food freezer at work. Many of my colleagues who were born and raised much closer to the equator avoid the freezer if they can because of the cold air. I'm more concerned about the the other qualities of the recirculating frigidity in the enclosed space (humidity level, lack of fresh air input, gas contents ((carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, others)), frostbite danger from touching cold surfaces, etc).
As an adolescent, I spent time at wildlife refuges and campgrounds under adult supervision. All I know is that it was cold and colder, {cold enough to freeze Lake Mattamuskeet with additional wind chill factor}, but so far from a thermometer or reliable weather station that I just left that measurement up to the adults and concentrated on other things."
D — Morrisville, NC
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"Back on January 21, 1985, we experienced temps down to -22° in Cookeville, TN. The high that day was just -8°. For perspective, normal temps for that day is 46 and 25. I was a manager at a restaurant and the temps on Sunday were so cold our restaurant could never warm above 55°. Sunday was typically our busiest day of the week and we literally had more staff than customers due to no one getting out. I had to go pick up employees at their homes because many of their cars would not start. We finally closed down about 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I went home and saw Super Bowl 20. That was the only nice thing about that very cold day! "
Michael — Cookeville, TN
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"On January 31st, 1966, I lived in the county of Pickens County just west of Greenville, SC. There was a fresh layer of snow from the prior day on the ground and the low temperature that morning was -6"
Larry — Lyman, SC
MIDWEST
"The coldest temp I ever experienced was -30 degrees in St Cloud, Minn. The year was 1960 and I was told by my High School Guidance Counselor that the air was dry and you won't feel the cold. Came from the state of New Jersey, not so for those of you that live in this type of climate will attest to. Well now I live in Florida, I wonder why?"
Ben
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"The coldest temperature I have experienced was in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1978. The actual temperature was 25 degrees below zero. The wind chill made it feel like forty-something below zero."
Durwin — Indianapolis, IN
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"For me it was February 2, 1996. This was the day that Minnesota also set its all time coldest temperature record of -60°F near Tower Minnesota in St. Louis County. At the time I worked near St Cloud, Minnesota and experienced -40°F air temps with a wind chill estimate of 50 to 55 degrees below zero. We were supposed to work outside that day but we were able to convince our boss that this was not a good idea by doing the experiment of throwing a coffee pot of boiling water into the air and watching it turn into ice crystals before it could hit the ground. We explained to him that this would probably also happen to us if we worked outside that day since we were mostly made up of water. He smiled at our story and needless to say we spent the day at the office, trying to keep our vehicles warm enough so they would start for the drive home after work."
John — Golden Valley, MN
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"The coldest temperature I have ever experienced was -34 F on January 18, 1994, when I lived in Duluth, Minnesota. (Note that this is not the wind chill.)
I took a photograph of my indoor/outdoor thermometer that morning, hoping to use the picture for my 1994 holiday card. I still have the photo.
I had really hoped that the temperature would drop to -40, the point at which Fahrenheit and Celsius are equal, but I came up short. In fact, that morning's official reading of -32 F did not even break the "bottom ten" of all-time lows in Duluth. Though temperatures below -30 F don't happen every year in Duluth, they are not that unusual. I still had to show up for work that morning and I don't remember any other particular details about that day."
John — Westfield, IN
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"It was on January 16, 2009 here in Iowa and I measured a low of -33 F (not a wind chill). Fortunately it was calm that morning and I was able to navigate to work without too much pain."
George— Quasqueton, IA
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"From the National Weather Service:
The Winters of 1976-77 1977-78 and 1978-79
Back to back to back brutal winters occurred in the late 1970s. These were three of the five coldest winters on record. 1976-1977 had 54.1 inches of snow and was the 3rd coldest winter ever. January 1977 was the coldest January on record with an average temperature of 10.1. There were 12 days below zero in January 1977. December 28 1976 to February 8 1977 has the distinction of being the longest continuous string of sub-freezing weather in Chicago history, 43 days. Winter 1977-1978 was the 5th coldest. The 82.3 inches of snow that fell was the 2nd highest seasonal total. Winter 1978-1979 was the 2nd coldest. The 89.7 inches of snow that fell is the all-time season record. One of Chicago's worst blizzards occurred January 13th and 14th 1979. The storm total was 18.8 inches of snow. Roofs collapsed from the weight of the snow, people fought over parking spaces and a mayor lost his job.
The coldest day of 1977 was January 16, with a low temperature of -19°F. For reference, on that day the average low temperature is 18°F and the low temperature drops below 0°F only one day in ten. The coldest month of 1977 was January with an average daily low temperature of 2°F. (WeatherSpark.com)
I lived in the Chicago area until 1982, so I think this stretch of winters was the coldest. I recall wind chills being 40 to 50 below zero even colder. Cars wouldn't start, we learned to put cardboard in front of the radiator, park facing away from the wind, install electric engine warmers, etc. I remember one day when my mom's car wouldn't drive any faster than 30 mph down the highway due to the cold.
Now I live in Michigan, next to Lake Michigan so it rarely gets below zero, even when colder across the lake in Chicago."
Jill — Holland, MI
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"Columbus, OH,
Midday
Clear sky, calm winds (so wind chill not a factor)
Dec., late 1980's-early 90's
-17°"
Francoise — Kerrville, TX
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"-15 (-25 w/ wind chill) in Chicago, Jan 1991 or 92"
Scott
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"The coldest day I personally experienced was -44 F on January 16, 2009.
I live in a bottom land near a river, and our temperatures here frequently run lower than what is reported in surrounding communities. I read a local article several years ago about a scientist who studies permafrost, and she stated that there is a small patch of permafrost in Northwest Illinois around the area of my county and the next county north. She wouldn't disclose the exact location for fear of people seeking it out and inadvertently destroying it. Since my temperatures often run lower than surrounding areas, I sometimes wonder if that permafrost may be nearby."
Nancy — Mount Carroll, IL
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"The coldest temperature I have experienced was around 20 below, with wind chill maybe near 40 below, near Sterling, IL in December, 1984.
I was staying with my sister and her husband along with most of their 7 adult children – we were there for the Christmas celebration, of course. Maybe about 5 or 6 AM, I had to go to the bathroom. My bedroom was on the second floor; the bathroom was on the first floor. I got up and went down the hall to the stairs. As I descended, I began bouncing off the walls on either side of the stairs. I heard my brother-in-law say, “Why is she bouncing off the walls?” Soon, other people began to wake up and find they weren’t feeling normal. My brother-in-law went into the basement to check the furnace and was lucky enough to be able to come back up the stairs. He came outside where I was waiting and said, “Why am I going to die?” After while we counted noses as best we could and discovered that one of their sons was still asleep, so we got him up and out.
My sister, an OB nurse at the Sterling hospital, said, “There’s something wrong with us!” She was so loopy from the carbon monoxide she couldn’t manage to remember to dial 911, but she knew the phone number of the OB ward where she worked, dialed that and repeated that sentence. Two ambulances came and took all of us including the dog (dachshund!) to the hospital – we were all still up and walking, although some of our minds were still “muddled”. Our carbon monoxide levels were tested and we were given appropriate treatment.
We then went to the home of one of my sister’s sons, and had a happy Christmas celebration.
The furnace in my sister and brother-in-law’s home was turned off, all the windows and doors were opened and huge fans were brought in to get the carbon monoxide out. The chimney was checked and it was found that some of the bricks had deteriorated, fallen inward and were blocking the exhaust of the gasses. (Estimated date of original construction of the chimney: 1873.) "
Nancy — Tucson, AZ
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"The coldest temperature I experienced was -29 degrees F with a windchill of -70 degrees F. It was in Wisconsin the winter of 1995-1996. We moved back to California the following summer."
Karin — Foster City, CA
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"The coldest temp I have personally experienced was -40F measured by an unofficial thermometer when I was visiting Minnesota back in the early 90's. The coldest temp I have had at my weather station in Vienna Va (Vienna 3.3 N on CoCoRaHS network) was -10 with frequent wind gusts 40-50 mph. That temp was measured by a Foxboro temp and dew cell system which was compared to a NWS approved psychrometer once a week. It was Inauguration Day in 1984. The Inauguration in nearby Washington, DC had to take place indoors! The wind chill was something around -60F at times."
Ronald — McLean, VA
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"Growing up in Minnesota and now living in Vermont, I've seen some pretty cold temperatures. The lowest I've ever experienced was a -32F near Minneapolis, MN back during one of the winters in the mid-1980s. Also saw a -31F about 5 years ago in Lyndonville, VT after my wife started teaching here.
Coldest verifiable wind chill I've seen is -52F (-21F temp, 21kt wind)....which happened here at our house in Greensboro, VT this past February."
Adam — Greensboro, VT
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"Good question! I'm not sure what the actual temperature was, but the wind chill was 60 F below zero. That was a cold December night in Green Bay, Wisconsin, circa 1985. My parents picked my husband and me up at the airport, and the car battery slowly lost power on the highway heading back to their town. We came to a stop on a countryside off-ramp, and no one else seemed to be out on the road. I was wondering how it would feel to freeze to death, when someone pulled up in a pickup truck and happened to have a rope, and towed us the last few miles. That was the last time I went home for Christmas.
I’m now a thin-blooded Virginian"
Eileen — Vienna, VA
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"Sunday, 18 December 2016 -31 degrees F
Wednesday, 21 December 2016 +39 degrees F
70 degree temperature swing in about 80 hours"
William — Renville MN
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"I know for sure that we had several times when I lived in Springfield, IL that we had temps in the -25 F. range. I remember walking the 7 blocks to work one day when the wind chill temp was -55 F. I bundled up in my heaviest down coat and put some goggles on to protect my eyes since I had to walk into the wind. The Weather Service was warning that your eyes could freeze in a matter of minutes. It was a ground blizzard from the snow the previous day. We didn't get above freezing for 31 days. This was probably in about 1980 as near as I can remember.
The next day when the temps had moderated a bit (maybe -10F.) and the wind died down I put my cross-country skis on to go to work and was able to use the normally busy streets as my path. Not many folks went to work that day but the phone company wanted you on the job unless you were at death's door."
David — Castle Valley, UT
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"The coldest temperature I ever experienced was when the temperature was predicted to be -30 degrees F. That morning I checked the thermometer and discovered it had shattered from the cold. The air was "take-your-breath-away" cold and it hurt my lungs to breathe. It felt as if the moisture in my lungs was freezing into icicles stabbing my chest."
Anita — Minnesota
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"My Personal Coldest Temperature Experience
It was December 1976, I was due to graduate from drafting class at Hawkeye Tech in Waterloo later that month.To put myself through school, I worked at various gas stations around Waterloo, IA. My last one being the Mobile station at the corner of Ninth St and Washington in town.
Winter that year came in fairly dry and very cold. Wind chills plummeted in stiff northwest winds that accompanied the Canadian cold fronts. One or 2 inches of snow was whipped into 4 and 5 ft drifts here and there.
One particular night while working, the winds were gusting to 40 MPH along with -20 degree air temps. In those days, there were full service stations. You went out on pumped gas to cars that pulled in to the full service island. You also had to handle money and make change to customers at their car window. You couldn’t wear gloves and perform these two things. My hands were absolute ice blocks working this evening. I was starting the gas pump and running inside to warm up. Then back out to finish the gas and collect the money.
One customer pulled up in a larger motor home. I went out and started pumping his gas. He actually got out and came inside the station. After starting his gas, I came in to warm up my hands. He was standing next to me as I was blowing on my cupped hands. Suddenly, out of nowhere he asked me to wash his windows! I hesitated thinking to myself "is this guy nuts?" "In this cold?" I looked at him and ALMOST told him where to go when he said "NOW". I looked at him again in amazement, and for some reason, I held my tongue.
I went out and finished his gas and did his windows even though the was water was slush and streaked his windows because of the cold.
Its a good thing I held my tongue, the guy with the motor home who barked his orders was the regional manager for all the Mobil stations. I had done my duty in the worst cold conditions I experienced and retained my job until I graduated."
Max — Waterloo, IA
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"In my 58 years of mostly working outside or dealing with weather in a management position there are so many that come to mind and some that really stand out:
1: Late 70's I was a kid out of high school and starting collage and had a 1976 new Ford pickup with a snowplow and got connected with AAA in Minneapolis to do car starting in the Twin Cities area. This was one the coldest and snowiest on record and I so proud of how much money I made but this was first case of frost bite. Low temps. were in the -30 range and highs were in -10 area.
2: I got into the towing business in the early 80's and remember a winter when we had tons of snow and -0 highs for a long period. It was an late evening when I was removing another car from the ditch, laying in the snow hooking up to it and making a snow angle and thinking how warm it is compared to the past week. (More frost bite)
3: Winter of 2012 to 2013: Grand Rapids, MN Worst winter I have ever experienced! Cold, wind, snow, cold, etc.... This is when I started counting the days to get out this winter wasteland, I can't take anymore frostbite!
I wish I could say what the lowest temp. I have experienced but I'm sure it's -30F many times."
Gary — Grand Rapids, MN
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"I’ve twice experienced what television news at the time reported as temperatures of 22 degrees below zero, not including wind chill.
The first was in the late 1950’s at Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago, IL. Visiting a Navy officer there around the holidays I got ready to leave one morning but found the car’s manual transmission inoperable. After a couple of hours heating the transmission pan with candles, light bulbs and a hair dryer, the transmission fluid and shift lever loosened up enough to sluggishly operate.
The second event was in Wenatchee, WA around 1966-7 or so. Mid-morning one cold day a friend and I toured apple orchards to witness trees exploding due to the sap/internal moisture expanding. The day following, one could see apple trees that looked as though they had been shattered by lightning. Interestingly, either the previous or following July saw temps of 112 degrees.
I now live on the central coast of California, for obvious reasons."
Bill — Monterey, CA
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"Coldest I experienced was -37. Hardly a record and I was not out very long.
Doing a college class in biology/survival training I slept out 4 nights over 5 days. The coldest was -26. Two of us had down sleeping bags and everyone else had two synthetic. We were in a national forest about 90 miles northeast of Duluth, MN in January. First we dug down a few feet to clear the snow. Then plastic and then pads and then sleeping bags. Had a small stove to heat dinner up in the tent. Lots of firewood to use:).
My sleeping bag had been previously used while a professor studied glaciers in Canada, so it was a good one."
Dale — Garretson, SD
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"My coldest temperature was -25 degrees on January 19, 1994. I have been keeping temperature records since 1970."
Ron -- Ohio
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"The coldest temperature I ever experienced was during a run on December 24, 1983, Knoxville, IL. The temperature was 25 below zero, and the wind chill (old wind chill table) was 78 below. I wore practically all the running gear I had and two ski masks. Still, running into the 50 mph westerly wind (and snow) was a challenge, threatening to freeze parts of me I never knew could be subject to frostbite."
Roger — Urbana, IL
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"Coldest temp that I can remember was during the late fall and winter of 1984. Just moved back into the area and did not have a central heating system in the old home. Had two wood burning stove at each end of the house. Temperatures during the last week of December and the first two weeks of January averaged -28° as the low and the highs average -12° with a good stiff wind each day. Have not had a Winter like that since."
Steven — Holbrook, IN
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"Coldest ever: -25 degrees, Cincinnati, OH, Winter of 1975-76, so cold that the (street-parking) car wouldn't start, the apartment building heating couldn't keep up, and we went to bed very early because it was too cold otherwise. Even living 14 yrs in Cleveland area, with sideways snow, blizzards, wind chills and worse, I recall the Cincinnati night/day as the coldest ever."
Elaine in Arkansas
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"I was born and raised in Southwest Lower Michigan (near Kalamazoo). Summers were the typical 3 Hz (hazy, hot, humid). In the winter, the ol Lake Michigan snow machine kicks in several times a year and we average 80-100 inches of snow. One thing I didn't realize at the time was how it also acts as insulation with the winds coming off the "warmer" waters. We rarely got below zero there (I think the coldest I remember was maybe -5).
I moved to west-central Wisconsin (Eau Claire) in the summer of 1996. Like Michigan, it was the 3 Hs. However, I will never forget my first Christmas morning that year when the thermometer dropped to -25!!!! I thought I could literally feel my blood vessels freeze up inside my face it was so cold. I would not have blamed my old Ford Tempo if it didn't want to start that day (amazingly, it did!!!)
I used to scorn the Lake for the snow it caused. Now I realize how lucky I was to have something to keep the temperatures in check! Of course now up here it gets to -25 a couple times a year and I've gotten "used" to it (as much as you can get used to something like that).
It's amazing how different winters can be in just a few hundred miles (about a 450-mile drive)!"
Benjamin — Altoona, WI
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"The coldest temperature I have ever personally experienced was -13F degrees. I was a student at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois and had to make a 10 minute walk across campus to my first class of the day. This occurred during the winter of 1966-67 or 1967-68 and I am unsure of the month. I didn’t suffer any ill effects from the exposure, but I know that I would not have wanted to be out in it for much longer.
After graduation, I moved to California and have lived here for the last 48 years. I have been keeping detailed weather records for the past 44 years at my current location of Redwood Valley in Mendocino County (northern California). The coldest temperature I have personally experienced in Redwood Valley was 8F degrees on December 22, 1990. While that is not cold compared to most of the responses you have likely received, I think it is very significant relative to the climate of this part of the world.
Major damage was experienced due to this cold snap because the temperature was so much lower than anything ever experienced before in this area and it continued for such an extended period of time. In the 44 years I have been keeping records, there have been only 27 days when the overnight low was under 20 degrees. In 1990, there were 6 consecutive mornings under 20 degrees with lows of 8 and 9 degrees in the middle of that stretch and in a two-week period at the end of December there were 9 morning lows below 20 degrees. On one day, December 21, the high temperature never got above 32 degrees, the only time that has happened in my record keeping.
All of that is to say that the consecutive days of extreme cold for this climate never allowed the ground to thaw and the repeated cold drove the freeze deeper, especially in the sun-protected areas. I was managing a water agency at the time, and the water treatment and distribution system was never designed to handle such temperatures. We had exposed ductile-iron piping at our water treatment plant that was twisted and ruptured by the freeze causing major damage and water outages. After the incident, I felt compelled to write a list of protocols to be followed when such events of extreme cold are forecast. Those precautions consist mainly of shutting down any processes involving exposed piping and draining said pipes so freezing and expanding ice does not rupture the pipes.
The distribution system also suffered significant damage, usually on the small-diameter, exposed piping of the customers. Because of the many days of extreme freezing, some customer pipes didn’t thaw for many days and customers couldn’t even find their leaks. There was heavy water usage for weeks due to distribution system leaks that persisted for weeks until they were finally located and repaired.
I felt compelled to relate this incident because I think it demonstrates that relative extreme low temperatures can be just as dangerous and devastating as raw low temperatures. It can be too expensive to design for extreme low temperatures in some climates, but we need to be prepared with contingency plans for those times when such extreme low temperatures are forecast."
Keith — Redwood Valley, CA
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"It was the winter of 1978-79 in central Illinois. Winds were high (25 MPH) and my wife’s car had blown an exhaust manifold gasket. I was concerned about carbon monoxide getting into the passenger compartment. Being young, married, and with children, I had no money to have the repairs done, so I braved the cold and stood outside to replace the gasket. It was -25 that day, true air temperature. I got the gasket replaced, but suffered a small area of frostbite on the side of my nose.
The cold lasted a few days. On Christmas Eve day, my family traveled to my wife’s parent’s house, 90 minutes away. Along Interstate 55, we counted 23 dead rabbits along the road - the Volkswagen kind with four wheels. They were all diesels which had stalled due to the fuel jelling! They were popular vehicles back then, but few people had been educated in protecting their diesel fuel systems from extreme cold.
There were a lot of those vehicles on used car lots after that!"
Russell — Salida, CO
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"My personal record is 23 below zero without accounting for wind chill, in the wee hours of January 11, 1977. We moved back to central Illinois from sunny, warm Huntington Beach, CA., and spent the epic Winter of '77 in an old, uninsulated farmhouse so drafty the curtains moved even when the windows were closed. No warm coats, no hats, gloves, boots, warm blankets, stunned by the cold and the mind-boggling snow that never melted. By mid-January we were deeply snowbound, again, running out of milk and groceries, with three small children and a baby due any day. January 10th my husband scooped the long driveway like a madman as a pay loader from the rock quarry crept slowly down our road, followed closely by my sister, who was immediately shanghaied to babysit so we could fly into town and back for supplies before the roads drifted over again.
Two miles from home we were already busting drifts in the old Toyota and at three miles we were taking turns shoveling free of snowdrifts. The last three miles to town took 4 hours, with no possible hope of getting back home until the wind died and the pay loaders came out again. We were hunkered down at my other sister's place in town when I felt the first twinge about midnight. Sister and hubby both freaked out, afraid I might try to have that baby in her living room. The car was useless, the engine entombed in a solid block of ice from ramming through snow. Donna's car wouldn't turn over, the neighbor's car, two other friends' vehicles, nothing would start in the bitter, sub-zero temperatures. The town cop tried and failed to jump-start any of them. By 3am it seemed like half the town was out in the ice and stinging, wind-driven snow, in wind chills easily 40 below zero. I had to wallow my way through thigh-deep snow to climb into an ambulance, but eventually I was hanging on for dear life as a snowplow escorted us 15 icy miles to a hospital. You can understand my considerable distress when I reached the ER no longer in active labor. I made it very clear to the doctor that I could not leave there without a baby to show for their heroic efforts! Tracy was born at 1-11-77 at 11am through sheer force of will, and you can bet that was the last baby I ever had.
Yes, I still live in that house, albeit much insulated and snugger these days. My SoCal husband suffered through the following harrowing winter too, but if there had been a third winter like those two I'm sure he'd have bailed on me!"
Linda — Nokomis, IL
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"In January of 1966, the Minneapolis area had a cold spell that lasted about 2 weeks. Highs that didn't get above 0 and lows of -20 to -25 each day. I picked up my wife to be from work one night and because I had on a old sheepskin coat , stocking cap, sorrell boots & choppers, she called a bum and had me wait in a back room. I don't know if I embarrassed her, but she got a ride home in a warm car instead of a cold bus."
Gene — Maple Grove, MN
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"I don't remember the exact date, but in late January or early February during the winter of 1978. I recall a reading here in Leesburg, IN of -30° I believe, and I'm trying to be conservative. I just don't remember for sure. It could have been -35°."
Pardee — Leesburg, IN
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"I wanted to chine in to your questions. I lived in the outskirts of Chicago in Streamwood, IL and on January 19th, 1994 during the a strong cold wave, I recall Chicago O’Hare reaching -18 that morning, I was out early that morning in search of taking bank thermometer photos showing the cold temperatures, did find one in reading -22º that morning in Schaumburg, Illinois. I was 20 at the time. On a more recent note, my recent visit to Campbell Scientific in Logan UT I took a drive to do some geocaching in Wyoming and saw the car thermometer drop to -18 while driving over the Cache National Forest by a land feature that pools cold air known as Peter’s Sink that I learned afterwards from the locals. It is a natural sink hole that is known for very cold temperature on clear nights."
Ron — Georgetown, KY
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"I'm not sure of the actual air temp, but on December 24, 1983 or 1984 - can't remember which year - the wind chill just 7 miles south of Champaign, IL was -80*. My husband and I were trying to get to my Mom and Dad's house for Christmas from Chicago. It took us over 6 hours (normally a 3-hour trip) as we had to take several detours through country roads, as I-57 was closed due to blowing and drifting snow.
We got all the way to 1 mile out of town and couldn't make it to my parents' house. Our car got stuck in a snow bank and several of the men (whose cars were also stuck in snowbanks) helped push us out and we drove the 7 miles back to Champaign and stayed there for the night.
My husband still has to be careful about his ears, as they got frostbitten that horrible afternoon pushing the car out of the snow."
Ruth — Silverthorne, CO
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"As a young adult, I remember my antifreeze turning to slush at 32 below in Madison Wisconsin. I think the reading at the airport was 25 below but it was colder in the city. I believe this was on January 17, 1982. It may have been colder in the 1970's but I stayed indoors in those years and did not have to worry about moving a frozen car to avoid a parking ticket like I did in the 80's! The climate has warmed considerably since then."
Dave — Johnson City, TN
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"This day (1/15/2009) went down as the coldest temperature ever recorded in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The ASOS at the airport reached -29F. Of course I had to go outside to see what it felt like. I had been itching my left eye that morning so it was a little watery. Once I walked out the door, I wasn’t outside for more than 30 seconds and I blinked. My eyelashes got stuck together as the moisture on them froze. So I had to walk back inside the house only seeing out one eye. Once inside after a few minutes my eye popped open again."
Jim — Cedar Rapids, IA
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"The coldest I have ever here in Northern Kentucky was minus 28. It was around Christmas and there was about 18 inches of snow on the ground.
The pipes froze in the house. Luckily we were on cistern and I could dip out water with a bucket and rope. The pipes had to re-soldered when the thaw finally came. Overall, NOT a pleasant time."
Scotty — Warsaw, KY
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"I was winter camping a few years ago with my Boy Scout troop when we set the annual record for coldest overnight temp; -38F. The boys were fine in their quinzies and snow huts, but the leaders were under a parachute canopy so were a lot colder. One of the experienced guides had the end of his nose frostbitten quite badly. This was in north-central Minnesota."
Glen — Bird Island, MN
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"In January 1979 in Fairfield, Iowa, early one morning (regrettably I can't recall the exact date), according to the small town's only radio station the wind chill was 65 degrees below (also regrettably I don't remember the air temperature). My car was under deep snow (a total of three feet of snow fell there in January). That morning I had to walk to a nearby destination, dressed as warmly as possible in several layers of clothing, down jacket with hood and a ski mask; my breath's moisture and my eyelashes froze inside the ski mask. Despite the extreme cold, my car engine started, but fully revving the engine could not break the tires loose from the frozen pavement underneath. A few days later when the weather warmed enough to try to move the car, it wouldn't start because the battery had frozen and burst. Before January of that year I had lived mostly in Florida and southern California; I now live in South Carolina. That morning in Iowa was the coldest I have experienced in 79 years, exceeding even one very cold winter in Germany in 1964-65 when I was stationed there with the U.S. Air Force."
Glen — Greenville, SC
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"I am an observer in Texas. The coldest temperature I have ever experienced was about -20F on January 20, 1985 in Waukegan IL. The wind chill was reported to be around -55F !"
Don — Texas
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"It was about 1947 and we were visiting in Antigo, WI. Had stopped at a local diner for supper. The locals, like locals everywhere were talking about the weather. One mentioned that it would get down to 30° that night. We thought that was kind of high since it already felt much colder. He meant - 30° and I guess it did get that low. The next day, we children played most of the day in the snow and the high for the day was -10° with sunshine! We had a wonderful snow “house” in the big piles made by the snowplows in front of the house. That was before “miracle fibers” etc. Just wool snow pants and coats and mittens and scarves and whatever else we could find to put on!"
Arlene — Chadwick, IL
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"The coldest temperature I experienced was -25 degrees with wind chill of -75. It was on December 24 1986 in Chicago, IL. "
Bob — Illinois
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"January 20th 1985. Minus 25 in Warsaw Indiana. I don't know what the wind chill was."
Jeff — Claypool, IN
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"Putting on my remember cap and not missing those cold often very snowy and icy roads and shoveling, I am submitting the time when I had to be out in the very cold.
I do not remember the exact days, there were several, but I do remember the bitter cold.
The winter of 1982, January into February, living in Wheaton, a western suburb of Chicago, I was between jobs and looking for work in nearby communities of Downers Grove and Oakbrook. The weather reports were 26º to 30º below zero with a wind chill of 80º below zero. I wore a full length down coat yet the scarf and mittens barely kept the stinging cold off my face and hands during the hurried walk from car to buildings.
In the summer of 1985 we moved to North Central Arkansas where I cannot remember a below zero reading. Keeping records at my home since 2007, found the coldest two nights at 0º, Jan. 7 and 8, in 2014."
Audrey — Midway, Arkansas
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"The coldest I can recall experiencing was in The Boundary Waters Canoe area (Minnesota Canadian Border) in January 1996. Paula and I were on a week long dog sledding trip (outfitted by Paul Schurke's Wintergreen Dog sledding) and sleeping in unheated tents. One night early in the trip the temperature was 31 below. The outfitting and instructions for what to wear were excellent. By the last days of the trip it had warmed up some and we didn't even bother to pitch the tent -- we just dug a body size hole in the snow a couple of feet deep and with a bevy sack, foam pad and excellent mummy sleeping bags provided by the outfitter we were comfortable. We discovered we love the cold winters and a few years later purchased James Island in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to which we eventually retired. Paradise below zero!"
Dave & Paula — Drummond Island, MI
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"When I retired in FL and moved back to WI in 2003, I began taking daily weather observations on my Oregon Scientific weather station. The coldest I have recorded here at WI-RS-1 was on Jan. 21, 2011 when my recorded low was exactly –40.0°F, 3 miles WNW of Ladysmith, WI. I live in a low marshy area with Twin Creek just on my south, and a slough paralleling to the N, which effectively funnels cold air here from the NE, such that I usually have low temps near to the coldest recorded in this area. The same effect led to a low of –32.3°F on March 3, 2014, which was the last hurrah of that notoriously cold and long “Polar Vortex” winter (this reading is recorded in the comments section of my CoCoRaHS report for that day, which also showed we still had 28.5” of snow pack on that day). Doubt there have been too many other mornings in March in WI this cold. When I practiced here during the also extremely cold winter of 1978-‘79, I experienced several January mornings with lows at about –40 as could be determined by low tech outdoor thermometers. On some of those mornings, coworkers from colder sites would report their lows in the –42 to–44 ranges. Ladysmith is about 25 miles SSE of Couderay, which I believe holds the record for the lowest temp ever in WI. The official Ladysmith recording station is located at the Rusk Co Airport N of Tony, WI, which is located just to the S of the Flambeau River valley, such that cold air has ready drainage away from the recording station down the slopes of the valley—and as a result Ladysmith’s official winter low temps are usually 3 to 8 degrees F warmer than mine. Hope you find this interesting. "
Rick — Ladysmith, WI
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"It was either January 17th or 20th of 1982, or both, we had a low of -28. We had below zero temperature lows every day of that month. Coldest month I can remember."
Dan — Sheboygan, WI
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"New Year’s Eve 1971 in Detroit, -25º . The following July the temperature did not drop below 90º day or night the entire month."
Marshall — El Paso, TX
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"The coldest temperature I ever experienced was while attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In Jan 1963 we had -30 degrees. As I remember we had a 2-3 week period where the temperature never got above 0. Many days we walked to class with -15 to -20+ degree temps. "
Doug — Moore, SC
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"Coldest temp. I have personally experienced was in 1969, Jan. in Hoffman Estates, Ill. Little (was then) suburb south of Chicago. Was 7 a.m. and temp. was -18F. Went out to put trash in can and in less than 2 minutes, I had ice on my mustache, eyebrows and nose hairs!!! We left there in 1972 and was glad to come back to Texas."
Doug — Wylie, TX
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I spent the years 1962 - 1967 in Minot, ND. I grew up in Illinois, went to college in Wisconsin, and thought I knew what cold weather was. I was wrong. I can’t give you dates, but I remember those five winters very clearly. Every year around January 1 the weather would go below zero and stay there for three weeks. Many days the high temperature for the day would be around -5 with the low around -25. I remember seeing the thermometer read -30 more than once.
Actually I didn’t mind the cold as much as I had expected to. Our houses and cars were prepared for it, everybody had the proper clothes and we wore them. I would put on parka, hat and mittens to take out the garbage, not just run out to the curb in my street clothes as I often do here. And there was lots and lots of sunshine with less snow. I remember those years fondly when I can’t get out of my driveway because of snow drifts.
Jane — Charleston, IL
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Coldest temperature can be subjective. In a way, a somewhat warmer temperature with wind and moisture feels more cold and penetrating than a very cold temperature on the thermometer. For that reason, the coldest temperature I have experienced may be rivaled by several other events!
It was January 18, 1977. I was in 6th grade at Westwood Elementary School in Cincinnati, OH. It was also the coldest January on record in Cincinnati. Snow was uncharacteristically deep and the Ohio River was frozen to the extent that people were walking across from Ohio to Kentucky and back.
Sixth graders at my school had the opportunity to be student crossing guards. I was one along with my friends Jim Stolz and Sean Boyle. We prided ourselves on never missing. So, on January 18, 1977, with the ambient outside air temperature bottoming out at -25F, the coldest morning in Cincinnati history, we bundled up and went to school (no, it was not cancelled as it often is today), and prepared for crossing guard duty. We had orange belts we wore and flags to carry so we gathered these together and headed toward the door.
Before we could get outside, a teacher stopped us and asked where we were going. We told her we had crossing guard duty. She replied 'not today you don't'! We argued and, of course, we lost, and had to miss standing on the corner, keeping the world safe, on the coldest day in Cincinnati history. But...we did have school!
Ronald — Cheviot, OH
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From 1974 through 1979 I worked at a place called The Environmental learning Center in Isabella, MN. Isabella is between Ely and Silver Bay, MN and in the Hudson Bay watershed. Generally 5th graders came from Monday through Friday and had their classes in the out of doors. Earl Kuehnast help us set up a weather station and at the end of each month we would send the monthly sheet to him. In that 5 year period we had more than one day lower than - 40. Of course the thermometer stopped at - 40 so there were times we really were not sure how cold it was.
Probably the one cold day that stands out the most is the day that I was outside for about 30 minutes then when into the dining hall where the students were having breakfast. I came in the back door and one of the cooks asked me to go into the walk in cooler and pull out some some hamburger. I did, and then told her the freezer was broken because it was warm in it. She did not believe me but walked over to check it. She walked in, came out, looked at the thermometer for the freezer and got really upset at me for trying to pull her leg.
I had honestly thought it was broken. A quick change from minus 40, with some wind on top of it, to 0 in the freezer seemed warm to me.
John - New Bern, NC
GREAT PLAINS
"We were sighting oil rig locations in North central North Dakota and it was 57 degrees below without wind chill, and we worked the whole day."
Cyndy— Datil, NM
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"The coldest temp I have ever experienced is a toss up between Tower, MN on Dec 28- Dec 30, 1976 and late Dec 1983 in Surrey, ND when the temp dropped to -38F at the airport and -40F at the local radio station. In 1976, my roommate and I went to his home in Tower, MN. It dropped to -42F the night we got there, -41 the next night and a heatwave of -38F the last night. My cars defroster wouldn't keep the windows defrosted. We attended a local sled dog race one of the days.The temp rose to zero later that day. I took a picture of these hardy kids enjoying the "balmy" sunny day. Earlier that morning, the film broke in my camera. Luckily, my camera bag was designed to be a mini darkroom.
The toss-up with Surrey, ND is the temp was -40F, but the windchill hit -90F. My dad had come to visit over Christmas. When we we adventured out to get something to eat, my dad thought he had a flat tire. I told him that it was so cold that his tires had become stiff and were only flat on "the bottom side" and would improve once the tires warmed a bit. He lived in NE WI where they do not use block heaters. He had to stay a couple of days longer to get one installed because his (new) car wouldn't start. He said he would never come to Minot again in the winter. Luckily, we moved the next year to a warmer place - Bismarck, ND. In comparison, it was a warmer place!"
Ricky — Rice Lake, WI
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"It was -37 below zero here in Watertown, SD on last Saturday morning, but I’ve experienced -42 below zero in Fargo, ND and Center, ND many years ago."
Alan — Watertown, SD
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"In answer to the CoCoRaHS question about cold temperatures, I once spent a winter in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and recall January temperatures of ca. minus (-) 40 degrees. And I learned why the Sioux named it the "Moon of Popping Trees." At these temperatures the bark of Cottonwood trees along White Clay Creek popped-off - as I learned first hand."
Ed —Damascus, PA
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"The coldest that I can remember was just a few days ago in Pierre, SD it was -27 degrees F. One week ago. I can remember 60 years ago in Central South Dakota when it was very cold but don’t have any actually numbers to substantiate it. Of course in those days there wasn’t the warm weather gear that we now have."
Hope this helps.
Ken — Pierre, SD
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"When I was in grade school in Friend, Nebraska (1936-1944 ) we had cold winters. Lowest was -24°F, probably in ’39 or ’40.
The lowest I have experienced in Washington State is +4°F on December 27, 1968, in Port Townsend and Oak Harbor.
Coldest this year was 15.9F on Dec 17th."
Steve — Rockport, WA
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"Minot AFB, 2/1/1996: -66F (-35F with 17 mph winds) -official
Although we remember reporting -72F at one point that day with the pws.
And yes, it was physically painful."
Caryl — Raymond, NE
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"I am a lifelong resident of Texas with a few years in Oklahoma. From 1972-1976 I was in the US Air Force, stationed at Minot AFB North Dakota, on the base in officers housing that happened to be a few 4-person bungalows, essentially 4 bedroom houses usual wood frame construction on a slab (no basement unlike family housing). Now, I fought in the Cold War in SAC (pun intended) and this is one of my war stories.
We had a bad blizzard that started on Jan 10 and ended on Jan 12, and I think it was 1974, or possibly 1975. The wind was unusually strong and over the course of the storm, instead of new snowfall, it blew away all of the old snow and started blowing dirt around. In the middle of this, the wind and cold started to freeze up the gas furnace flue pipe and the house started to fill up with flue gas odor which of course is highly suspect for carbon monoxide poisoning. I was the only one of the 4 residents home at the time, the others were stuck elsewhere in the field for the duration (There are 15 missile launch control sites out to maybe 75 miles radius). I knew that while the place was warm enough it would probably be a fatal act not to leave the place, so I called the guys next door and told them of the situation and needed to come and sleep on the couch for a day or so, and that was fine. I got all bundled up and called them back and asked them to watch carefully for me while I ventured out. There are numerous stories in North Dakota where a farmer stretched a rope from the house to the barn to navigate barn trips during blizzards without getting totally lost. I made it next door and waited things out uneventfully. After the storm broke, I went back and aired out the place and everything was fine EXCEPT for all of the fine DIRT that was in every room of every building and inside most outdoor equipment all over the whole base. I noted that in the case of this particular house, it was the only one of the group that the flue pipe and furnace closet door was facing on the side (northwest) directly against the wind so it was the only one to ice up. Next day, everybody on the whole base was busy mopping dirty floors and walls. That included officers and GS-13 managers. I remember one particular weatherproof electrical cabinet in a new electrical substation that was almost brand new and had a tight rubber gasket, and after that storm it had at least a half inch of fluffy dirt in the bottom of it. I was the electrical engineer that was responsible for the electric system on the base, and I was real glad that the system held together that week. We had spent lots of tax dollars and work repairing and improving the whole system the previous two years, and it paid off well that week.
A week later I was talking to a tech rep friend for an electrical testing equipment sales company in Minneapolis, and he mentioned that the previous week had brought in a load of real dirty snow. That is 500 miles SE of Minot, directly downwind. I told him that was our dirt, and the dirt that we got probably blew in from Saskatchewan.
After your invite for stories I got onto the NOAA archives and looked up January daily high/low air temperatures for those 4 years, and in 1974 it showed lows of -19 -23 -25 -20 and -14 for Jan 9-13 1974 for the local Minot airport weather station. Now add winds of at least 30 mph, and gusts probably over 50 for a lot of that time. Now, I thought it was colder than even that, but that is what the records said. My lifetime experience is that the second week of January is typically the coldest part of typical winter wherever I have been. Eventually I moved farther south from Oklahoma to Austin to thaw out."
Bob — Austin, Texas
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"I noted in observation it was –31°F, Sunday, December 18, 2016
From NWS chat:
Public Information Statement
National Weather Service North Platte NE
626 AM CST Sun Dec 18 2016 /526 AM MST Sun Dec 18 2016/
...Extreme Cold Over Western and North Central Nebraska Overnight...
An Arctic airmass settled into the central tier of the country
on Saturday. This led to bitterly cold temperatures Saturday night
and into Sunday morning. Valentine Airport dropped to -31 F, which
not only was a new daily record low, but also stands as their coldest
morning since 1994. Daily record low temperatures were also tied or
set at North Platte, Broken Bow, and Imperial.
In addition, light westerly winds were enough to create widespread
wind chills of -20 or colder. The coldest wind chill reading was
-52 F at the Valentine Airport.
Below is a list of low temperatures and minimum wind chills values
as of 6 AM CST Sunday morning.
...Low Temperature Reports...
Location Temp
Valentine 1ENE -37 F
Valentine 1W -31 F
Valentine Airport -31 F "
Randy — Valentine, NE
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"-42 Sioux Falls, SD"
Gordon — Tyrone, GA
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"The last Sunday in December, 1967, we awoke on my parents' ranch 7.5 mi NW of Chadron, NE - it was -40."
Lela — Estes Park, CO
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"As best as I can recall [ by searching data at Grand Forks U ] it was 1-14-1972 my 1st day at GFAFB , ND . An airman picked me up at airport in pickup truck, through my duffle bag in back and ran me out to the base, he pulled up in front of a barracks and pointed to the door in the blowing snow [ it was about 30 yards up a side walk] , I had my class A uniform and overcoat on, my dress Hat [no ear protection] and I can not remember about gloves, so think I had them 'ON' ......I grabbed duffle, maybe 5 sec out of truck, and proceeded to walk briskly toward the door, about 1/2 way [15 yards from tuck, I put the duffle down, and cupped my hands over my ears for 10 sec, then picked up duffle and ran to door [temperature was -22.F , wind unknown but blowing] That is the day I learned the meaning of 'wear your hat' ??"
George — Buffalo, NY
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WEST
"I had just started a new job at Village Inn in December of 1983, and a wicked cold snap was underway in Glendale, CO.
My car wouldn't start, so I decided to try to walk to work, which was about 2 miles away. I was new at the job, and didn't want to miss a day if I didn't have to.
I bundled up as heavy as I could, then set out for the walk along Colorado Blvd. I made it about an hour later. I went right into the cook's station and hung over the grill until I was able to see straight. I was so cold I had blurred vision. After I was able to see again, my boss wondered why I did this. I told him why, and he let me rest and warm up for a while before I started work. I was fine after a while, and finished my day at work. When I got home, I pulled the battery out of my car and put it in my entryway so it would work the next morning.
Ah, to be 21 again...I wouldn't try that stunt again if it happened now! We went 115 straight hours below zero during that cold snap. Our pipes in the Village Inn dining area busted during that time and flooded the restaurant. We were closed for a time that day. The coldest temp I recorded was -25°F during this time.
Way too cold for my bones..."
Chris - Loveland, CO
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"Jan. 1971 coming back to Taos, NM from Clayton, NM it was 52° below in Eagle Nest, NM. My Car heater was blowing cold air. I remember because I was on the way home from a shortened quail hunting trip due to the impending birth of my daughter on Jan. 10th."
Jim — Taos, NM
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“What's the coldest temperature I have ever experienced?" When I read this on my CoCoRaHS page to do my weather stats on Dec 22nd, I instantly recalled the time frame and temperature! I was on Active Duty and stationed at Ft Stewart, Ga just outside of Savannah and had come back home to Montana on leave for Christmas. It was December, 20th of 1969! When I got off the train in my hometown of Glasgow, Montana, the temp on the Time & Temp Sign on the bank across from the depot said -50! I remember getting in my Dad's '65 Chevy pickup to start it and go to our home in the country, and the seat felt like a block of ice!
And in December of 1982 when I was working for the Montana Dept ofHighways, we were doing bridge work replacing broken bridge timbers on bridges west of Plentywood in NE Montana. The temperature was -30 but the wind chill was a -75 degrees! Those are two of my experiences with cold temperatures.
Thank You for letting me remember an experience from a Christmas past!”
Ken — Plentywood, MT
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"The coldest was in 1979 when I was out in Jackson Hole, WY trying to ski... Temperatures were sub-zero all week and I think it dropped to -49 or -50 at one point. I am trying to remember which week that was, first week of January I think. The memory is blurred as this was a college ski trip!!
Another cold one was 1977 or maybe 1978. Those years blend together cause the mid to late 70's were just cold! Was in high school Union Mo. -26. Know that one because Paul Schoene was the local weather guy who was responsible for the weather station there. He let me help read the daily totals from time to time.
Personally I like the last upswing that mother nature has given us. But I am sure it will cycle back as it always has."
Bruce — Waldron, MO
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"About 5 years ago we had 8 degrees below zero at my home. Another time when I was a young man many years ago a friend of mine and I went skiing in Breckenridge CO when the real temp at the lift was -16 degrees at the lift station. Had great day and no lift lines."
Bob — Edgewood, NM
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"I hit a new low (temperature) this year by experiencing -35 degrees here in Wyoming. Previously, the lowest I had experienced was -28 degrees but that was back in Missouri one cold winter. I like to blame the achy hands on that winter long ago as I was beaver trapping that winter and putting my hands in cold water all the time. Ah, the memories. We'll see if next week brings a colder temperature for me or not. The forecast is to get close..."
Josh — Riverton, WY
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"Coldest temp. ever experienced was in the early 1970's North of Thermopolis, Wyo. in the Lucerne area along Owl Creek. In January it got to 55 below, I remember it very well as I fell through the ice while cutting out a water hole for the milk cow. Luckily it was only about 50 yards to the house, as it was by the time I got to the house my pant legs were frozen solid and I could barley walk.
Next would have been in Idaho along Antelope Creek, out of Arco, ID, in the 80s, it got to 50 below a couple of times."
Doug — Worland, WY
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"It was in the 1960s in Berthoud, CO somewhere around 30 below.
Picture the Berthoud exit on I-25: the highway has a curve there to take advantage of the natural hill for the overpass, and on the west side of the current highway was Hart's Corner, a diner and filling station, similar to the original Johnson's Corner building and others along the front range. After the interstate was built, Hart's Corner had moved into the walkout basement of that small house to the west where a tractor dealership was the last time I looked. They had a fire the night it got to 30 below, and it was so cold the Berthoud fire siren froze and telephones had to be used to summon the volunteer fire department members."
Laura — Drake, CO
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"I have seen some cold temperatures in the mountains of Colorado but the one that I remember the most was -41 in Alamosa, Colorado. It was my job to open the doors at the college at 5am and I got up and started but someone was burning cedar in a house nearby and it smelled so good I took a deep breath. Then I couldn't exhale for about 2-3 seconds and when I did I new I had done something bad. I think I froze something in my lungs because by that afternoon I had Pneumonia and my lungs had filled with fluid. Never take a deep breath when it is -41 deg!!!!!!"
Doug — Brush, CO
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"I've been in NM for 20 years and the coldest we've had here was -17°. In Pennsylvania the coldest we had was -27°."
Joanne — La Luz, NM
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"For me, it took place the morning of February 1, 1985 in Telluride, Colorado, where my family and I lived at the time, and which I believe goes down as one of the coldest day in Colorado's history.
I and my wife Sue were school bus drivers for the Telluride school district, 2 of the only 3 they had at the time. The 2 of us would split up the driving, she would do the morning run and I the one in afternoon, for the route that covered all of town, and also The Ski Ranches (about where Mountain Village is today, and outside of town on the other side of the ski mountain). But whenever it snowed (like half the mornings there), I got to run both shifts, as Sue didn't wish to drive the old bus in the snow. Back in those days, we took the bus home with us, and we lived in the east end of town. We would plug in the bus every night to a heater that kept the bus's radiator's water warm, since it seemed to go below zero most mornings there.
On the morning of February 1, 1985, Sue awoke me before 6 am to tell me that the bus won't start - even though it was plugged in as usual, something that never happened before or after that morning. When I looked at our outdoor thermometer before I left the house, it was -31 degrees (F), the coldest reading I ever seen anywhere, before and since! I also couldn't get the bus started, as the battery was dead from the cold. Most of the cars in town won't start that morning, while a very heavy fog like cloud formed and hung over town from the very cold temps that morning, and stayed there for the entire day. I recall that when you breathed that morning while outside, that mini 2 second cloud that forms from your breath on cold days, well it also didn't dissipate at all, it too just hung in the air, part of the reason for the fog cloud that from, since nothing dissipated that morning, it was just too cold to do so!
The official temp in Telluride that morning was -32 degrees (F), while it was -30 up on the ski mountain. It was on this same day that several cities across Colorado also saw their coldest temperatures ever recorded too, including a reading of -61°, recorded in Maybell, which to date is the coldest reading ever in the entire state.
As far as getting the kids to school that day, we got the parents who lived up at the Ski Ranchers to drive in their children that morning (as Sue got on the phone and called all of them), and I hijacked the town's ski bus and got the driver to pick up all of the kids who lived around town, even thought his route didn't cover anywhere as much an area as our school route did. But we got to all of them and not a single kid missed school that very cold day - nor did any of them freeze to death from the cold while waiting for the bus (thank goodness!).
So Henry, that's my story of the coldest air temperature that I ever experienced (and yes, I was a weather spotter even back them, too, just not the COOP man yet!)."
Cheers,
Keno — Colorado
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"Henry, back in the mid 1960’s I worked and lived in Star Valley, WY, and in fact I married a Star Valley girl. She remembers -50 degree in Auburn where she lived. During my time there (1963-1968) it was -40 quite often during those winters. And lots of snow! Later we moved to Laramie, WY and during the 30+ years we lived there we often experienced -30 on the thermometer during the winter."
Mel — Utah
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"First week in March, 2002, West Thumb Ranger Station, Yellowstone National Park. Thermometer was pegged out at -40 degrees F. But it warmed up quickly from there to above 0F.
Coldest period encountered: January 2007, near Moran, WY. High for the month 0 degrees F. Most of the month stayed between -20F and -38F."
Steve — Hot Springs, NC
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"The coldest ambient air temperature I ever experienced was minus 30F at Bear Lake in Utah, near Laketown, on 1-31-79. That is still the record low for Laketown on that day. I was ice fishing with another NWS forecaster on the lake. Fortunately, the wind was very light that day."
Jim — Grand Junction, CO
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"The coldest temperature I have experienced was when I lived in SW Montana. It was common for it to dip to around -25 degrees in December for a couple of weeks. Even my Malamute dog wanted to sleep inside at night."
Anita — Providence, UT
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"The coldest temp I have experienced is minus 17 degrees, the morning of December 24, 1990 in Farmington, NM. My wife and I had moved there earlier that fall from Portland, OR - where the temp rarely got as low as zero.
We had rented a funky little slap-it-together house built in the 50’s during an oil drilling boom. The previous night we were huddled together on the couch covered with a blanket as cold air was coming out of the gas furnace. Knowing there was a problem, I got a flashlight to check out the attic crawl space where the heat supply ducts were located. To my surprise the galvanized ducts were not insulated and there were open vents in the end walls of the attic space.
First thing that morning, I high-tailed-it to the nearest lumber yard for fiber glass insulation. Didn’t contact the landlord as this was a must do house fix. All Christmas eve day and until 1:00 AM Christmas morning I worked on wrapping the ducts. That fixed the problem and the house got warm. Still can’t believe that for more than 30 years no one had insulated the ducts. There must have been many cold nights spent in that house."
Dwight — Klamath Falls, OR
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"I write for the retired MIC from NWS GTF (Ken). Here is his cold temperature story.
'The coldest temperature? Remember that well. It occurred while I was a weather officer in the Air Force, here at Malmstrom AFB (Great Falls, Montana) - probably in 1971 or 72. I was working a mid shift and the base temperature gage got down to -46 ! Boy that was cold - we were starting our vehicles every 2 hours, the snow squeaked loudly under your feet, if you wrinkled your nose, it stayed that way - if you spit in the air, it landed as a clump of ice! The sun came up that morning with a beautiful red sky and sun dogs were present.'
Here’s my personal story:
'The coldest temperature I experienced was 33 below F with calm winds in Great Falls MT, in the late 70s . I was a young meteorologist working for the NWS. I lived close enough to walk to work and walked that night the 4 blocks to the office for my midnight shift with the temperature around 33 below. It wasn't that bad.
Another story. In Great Falls you have engine heaters and one time when it was only 10 or 15 below someone stole my extension cord, so my car wasn't plugged in, but it did start at 530 AM when I was heading into work.'
I live in CLE now and coldest I experienced here was 19 below."
Frank — Westlake, OH
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"I live in Sublette County, Wyoming at 7,000’ on the valley floor. It got to –58 during the winter of 1984. I was feeding cows for a neighbor. Fortunately, I was still fairly young and thought it an adventure! Also fortunately – there was no wind."
Kim — Big Piney, WY (on the Green River)
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"It was -40F on my North porch. The lowest temperature my alcohol-based (red fluid) thermometer would read. Don’t know if it was actually any colder than that!"
Richard — Lander, WY
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"I think the year was 1982, or close to it. In the wee hours somewhere west of Cheyenne, Wyoming we were at -30 with a wind chill of -50 or more. My husband was driving my diesel Rabbit while I and our two boys slept. He did not keep the rpms high and the poor thing gelled. I flagged down a bus and then found an extremely tired tow trucker who made one last trip out because my husband and kids were still in the car (he refused to wake the kids and come with me). I'll never forget that man, I literally had to keep shaking him to keep him awake and tried to talk his ears off... a very sweet man. Thanks to him we made it to Grandma’s house for Christmas."
Linda — Kamiah, ID
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"The coldest temp I've ever experienced was -21º in Brian Head, UT last Christmas holiday, 2015. There was several feet of fresh powder snow and high winds, so it was white out conditions most of the time and much lower wind-chill temps... i cant remember the actual "feels like" reading. Being from south Texas, this was a rare, and not fun, experience for me! I prefer Brian Head in the summer from now on! Love being a member of the CoCoRaHS family!"
Barb — Victoria, TX
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"I think the coldest temp I ever experienced was -44. This was on our ranch SW of Saratoga, Wyoming. I believe it was in 1984. It took all day to get the cows fed, because nothing wanted to start. I remember a 1959 Chevy PU did start and we went around with it to jump the tractor and a 4x4 pickup. there was lots of snow then and it was beautiful. Burned a lot of wood that winter. There were several -36 to -40 back then, but nothing like that recently."
Mike — Fort Laramie, WY
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"In the winter of 1991/1992 I was working at the construction site for a new Little America Travel Plaza at Little America, Wyoming. Since the construction was in its early phases in January of 1992, it was mostly outside work. Throughout most of the month of January, the morning temperatures were steady at about -35°, and the daily high temperature only ever reached 0°. I have in the years before and years after seen temperatures that low, but never lower; that period of time sticks in my memory because I was working outdoors in it! (Actually, it was kind of fun, being a challenge.)"
Aaron — Green River, WY
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"We used to live in Kremmling, CO from 1980-1986 and during that timespan, the coldest temperature we saw was -42F. That is the kind of temperature that when you go outside, you cough, due to the air being so cold. This was not a wind chill. Actual air temp. So cold . . . could you even bear that now."
Wiley — Lamar, CO
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"The coldest day I remember was in the 1950's in Butte, Montana. We walked to school when it was -40 degrees. It was sunny, no wind and we had warm clothes."
Sally — Salem, OR
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"It's hard to remember the exact dates and timing, but we spent the winter of '69-'70 in Helena, MT. It snowed Christmas day and the next day it went below zero and did not get above for several weeks. The coldest night was -40 and the highs were about -6 for the period. I had head-bolt heaters and dipstick heaters in my '65 Pontiac, and a heater under the battery, threw an old quilt over the hood every night, and still had to use starting ether to get going in the morning. Then we would go around the trailer court jumping other cars to get us all off to work in the morning. We had three feet of snow and ice in the front yard until sometime in early April."
Ken — Snowflake, AZ
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"It happened during my younger years. My coldest temperature experience was February 1, 1951. (41 degrees below zero.)
We had a small farm at in Fort Collins (1.1/8 acres). It's almost alI CSU now.. My Dad "Jerry", Managed the Animal Investigation Cattle at the College Farm ( Colorado A & M at that time.) "
Glen — Fort Collins, CO
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"I moved to Idaho in the summer, 1972. That winter the coldest day was -21° F in December. I lived in a low-rent old house with little insulation, not a very good heating system, little money to buy nice cold-weather clothes, and rode a bicycle to college and work. Gads.
December 22, 1990, however, was -23° F, and the YMCA-sponsored 'Christmas Run' started that day in mid-morning at about -20° F. My 11-yr old son and I had done the 3-mile walk option in the Christmas Run for years, and we bundled in layers and layers for the walk that year. Luckily we walked the route with a nurse, and we constantly were checking each other's faces for frostbite. I can remember the sound of the squealing snow as we walked the course. I don't think my son and I ever walked the Christmas Run again after that!
I was a ground-water hydrologist, and in the mid-1980's had to spend a week near Blackfoot, Idaho (SE Idaho) collecting water samples and measuring water levels in monitoring wells. Daytime temps were in the -10 to -15° F range with wind chills. I worked out of a small truck camper with a catalytic heater that served as a mobile water lab. Exposed fingers stuck to an aluminum parts in the camper. Even with the catalytic heater on full blast, water spilled on the counter tops froze instantly. I also was just recovering from flu or was just coming down with flu because I was sick all that week. However, running a temperature, the cold did feel good at times. My fingers remember the aching cold even today.
As kids growing up in northern Connecticut in the 1960's, we used to toss all our ski gear in a vehicle and head for the ski areas no matter what the weather. I remember the base Lodge temp at Bromley was -5° F one trip, but we skied all day anyhow. That was before today's good insulating ski wear was available. Can't imagine why we didn't get frostbite while sitting on the lifts or skiing down the slopes.
Now that I am a little older, I do enjoy the warmer winters we have been having. Last winter (2015), the lowest Boise temp for the year was 10°F. Bring it on!"
Deb — Boise, ID
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"My Mom, who is now 93, talks about the winter of '36 when it did not get above zero for a month. She was in Circle, Montana at that time and they had to walk to school, so they didn't have school for a month or more. She said her mother would go out and get a barrel of snow each day and bring it into the house to melt and that was their water. The cow stopped giving milk - I'm sure it got some of that melted snow water, but not enough. I don't know what the coldest temp was that month, or the coldest she's ever experienced, but that had to be a long winter, for sure! This may not be what you are looking for in your article - and maybe others from NE Montana will have more & better stories like this. Last week, the coldest we saw was minus 32, when my brother was up during the night."
Lois — Poplar, MT
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"The coldest I have seen since 1973 was -37 last Saturday, Dec 17, 2016. In 1973, we had -40, but the coldest I experienced was about -30. We were herding some cows off Wyoming 487 and walking into a light east wind. With the wind chill, that felt like much colder than the -40."
Hustace — Casper, WY
--
"Castle Rock, CO
February 14, 1989
-24 degrees F
I was 10 days overdue with my third child. I truly did not want to venture outside even to pop out a baby. Daughter Caitlin was born on February 15, 1989 at 12;15 AM."
Amy — Castle Rock, CO
--
"Deming NM — Chihuahua Desert
Feb 2011 temps fell to waaay below 'normal' 11 below zero first night then 9 below second night. Pipes are in attic so drained to protect from freezing; 100 w light bulb in well head to protect. So no frozen/broken pipes for me. third night back to 20's days 50 degrees.
Many folks did not pay attention to warnings and had frozen pipes across area. Plumbers were extra busy...
Many plants frozen, but cactus recovered as ground only froze .5" deep. Tropical plants i.e. Oleanders and Palm Trees did not fare as well."
Alberta — Deming, NM
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"Minus 26 degrees F. Happened a few winters ago. Most of North central NM lost natural gas as a main gas pump station froze if my memory is correct. We got gas back after 3 or 4 days. Had to go to Las Alamos for hot showers as we use a natural gas hot water heater."
Lee — Embudo, NM
SOUTHWEST
"Thanks to wunderground.com, I can tell you not only the coldest temperature I’ve ever experienced, but the date: February 5th, 1985, -20 degrees F., in Flagstaff, AZ.
I had moved to town the previous August, and while I had been warned about the potential for cold, figured the locals were pulling my leg. They weren’t. I had to leave at 8:00 AM; at that time of year, the sun is just above the trees, so it’s safe to say it was near minimum. I’d plugged in my car, which started right up—but the transmission was frozen, and didn’t thaw for over 20 minutes. Once the car could move, I went to help start my neighbor’s truck, which was so frozen it wouldn’t turn over even with the boost. I could feel the cold coming up through the soles of my boots.
My relatives back East always had a difficult time believing how cold it could get here. It’s Arizona, right? Cacti and palm trees? They never quite comprehended that altitude (we’re at 7000’) trumps latitude. Dad used to get USA Today, where Arizona was just below Alaska on the weather page, and pointed out that Flagstaff was often colder than Anchorage and occasionally colder than Fairbanks."
Myrna — Flagstaff, AZ
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"I lived 30 years in Fort Valley, Arizona about 10 miles west of Flagstaff. It is a mountain meadow at an elevation of 7300 feet. It is the first flat area down grade from the San Francisco Peaks (12,600 ft) so the temperatures were a result of cold air drainage. In those thirty years my wife and I saw it get down to -48 F three times. At that temperature getting a vehicle to start without a block heater is pretty much impossible. One interesting thing to note is that the two temperature scales cross at -40 so in this range Fahrenheit and Celsius are pretty much the same."
Mike — Bridgeville ,CA
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"My coldest day was when attending Northern Arizona University in the early '70's. It was -20° overnight and rose to -10° for a high. Not a particularly remarkable story but temperature and snow were never an excuse to cancel classes. I learned to ride a ten speed bike on snow, using snow banks for braking. One winter the chains never came off our vehicle."
Regards,
Gary
NORTHWEST
"I’m not old enough to have experienced the coldest temperatures observed since 1910 in the JohnDay uplands of North Central OR: 24°F below in Jan1927, within two miles of the CoCoRaHS gauge. However, a family who moved from this area to Dawson Creek, BC (more than 50 yr ago) mentioned that it got to 60°F below there, but (in essence) it was a calm cold (not much wind).
P.S. When living in CO, I downhill skied SnowMass when it was worse than 20°F below, … not even a guess as to the wind chill, but when warming up indoors, it took nearly 15 min to get a pair of Hanson boots warmed up enough to get them off my feet … that would have been in the ‘80s -- those also happened to be the boots I shattered an ankle in (metal clip on the front may have been pivotal, when ski wind-milled).
Coldest was when I was in Boardman, Oregon about 1965. Minus 25 degrees."
David — Olympia, WA
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"My coldest experience is unrelated to the actual temperature. While climbing Mt Rainier in 1969, we ascended into a lenticular cloud. The wind was blowing strongly from the west and we were climbing northward. My vision was becoming increasingly blurry (I am severely nearsighted) and I realized that ice was accumulating on the surfaces of my left (windward) lens. I was only seeing with my right eye. Then I noticed that my ice axe was encrusted with rime ice. The liquid in the water bottles in my pack had frozen almost solid. I think the actual temperature was somewhere in the teens but it certainly felt a lot colder. This was in August."
Joe — Lebanon Oregon
ALASKA AND CANADA
"The coldest temperature that I've experienced was -55° in Fairbanks, Alaska, in early 1971, when I was stationed as a lieutenant with the U. S. Army at Fort Wainwright. We had a week where the highest temperature was -40°. I spent 18 months at Fort Wainwright. The first winter, Fairbanks set a record for most consecutive days below freezing at 120 days and the second winter, Fairbanks set a record for the most snowfall at 150".
My hometown was Buffalo, so I was used to cold and winter-like conditions; but, some of the men in my platoon came from warmer climates and had to adjust. Part of our standard issue was two sleeping bags: one designed for summer, the other for winter. During the winter, we put one sleeping bag into the other and were somewhat comfortable. We did a lot of cross-country skiing and our fur-edged hoods would be covered with frost. The food service folks would always have some warm soup for us when we stopped for a break."
Mike
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"I can't remember the exact temperature, but will give you a range. I was stationed at Eielson Air Force, Alaska in 1958 and 59 and remember low temperatures reaching from 50 to 58 below zero. The last bus ran from Fairbanks to Eielson at 10 PM, and we missed the bus many times and had to stand out on a cold highway and hitchhike back to the base!!! People in those days were great at sharing a ride. I was in the Air Weather Service during my tour in the AF.
I later spent several years at different National Weather Service offices in Alaska including the Fairbanks Forecast Office, and never experienced quite as cold at down at Eielson in the Tanana Valley."
Dale - Chattanooga, TN
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"Most recently –35 °C on Feb.13, a Saturday. We were leaving Deep River Ontario for points south and eventually, our first ever trip to Florida. However, after 36 years living here, I can say that the temperature has been colder than 35 °C below on a number of occasions, in the neighbourhood of – 40°C."
Wayne — Deep River, Ontario
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"The coldest temperature I have experienced was while living in Alberta, Canada. We lived in a small town 100 miles north of Edmonton. In the mid 1950s we had a couple winters where night time temperatures dipped to below minus 60°F. Since our thermometers were the liquid in a tube type, the lowest temp on the scale was minus 60. My dad observed that the temp dropped past that limit in the late evening, and it continued to get colder. On two occasions, when the temperature got this low, our propane fueled furnace stopped working. We had learned that propane stops evaporating into a gas in the tank at around minus 60°F, and so no fuel was flowing to the furnace. My dad solved the problem by putting a small amount of diesel fuel in a metal can, with a rag for a wick, and lighting it. Setting this under the 500 gal propane tank provided enough heat to warm the liquid propane to the point that it produced enough gas pressure to allow the furnace to function again. At those low temperatures the diesel did not burn cleanly, and in the morning the white tank sides were covered with black soot part way up from the bottom. The folks next door expressed a little concern that there had been a fire under the propane tank, since it was located near their home. The fun of living in a cold climate!"
Wes - Gig Harbor, WA
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"The coldest weather I have personally experienced was –30F below zero. It was in January 1971 at Banff National Park in Calgary, Canada. My UT-Austin college roommate (who lived in Calgary) and I went skiing. We also went swimming in the hot springs at Banff which parks officials had considered closing because the water temperature had dropped so low (ice formed on our hair in seconds, so we spent most of our time under water). We also camped out in the back of his parents’ station wagon by Lake Louise. We had two down bags each. Almost couldn’t get the car started the next morning. Our canned fruit cocktail and everything else in our “ice chest” was frozen. There was ice on our bedrolls from our breathing, and we had to scrape ice off the inside of the windows. Quite an experience. And of course this Texas Gulf Coast boy (aged 19) did not have proper clothing for such conditions. That was a memory maker!!"
Chris — El Campo, TX
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"We lived in Fairbanks for 22 years. Our son rented a cabin in the Gold Stream Valley north of Fairbanks. One winter our son and daughter-in-law had gone to NY state to visit her family. My wife and I went to the cabin to check on things and it was -62º at the cabin. I worked at the University and walked about two miles to work each day. Many times it was around -30º. Children played outside until it got to -20º.
One can dress to withstand cold but it is impossible to stay comfortable with high temperatures and high humidity. We now live in southwest Missouri and really don't like the weather here."
Dwight — Noel, MO
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"Since you asked, in the winter of 1968 while attending the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, I decided to walk the seven miles to school so that I would be able to truthfully relate a story comparable to the ones I heard from my parents and grandparents about walking to school. The temperature was seventy below zero. I lived in Fairbanks for six years, but that was the coldest weather I had experienced. Fifty below was not uncommon, but seventy below was.
I actually got hot, because I was dressed too well. Many folks saw me walking and offered me rides, but I was determined to make the trek without the assistance of petroleum."
Jim— Anthony, NM
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"You know I couldn't resist this question. ;) When we were living in North Pole, AK, I experienced a still-air temperature of 58 below. I cracked our front door and held an alcohol thermometer outside, so it may have been affected a little by house heat."
Chris— Newnan, GA
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"The coldest temperature I have personally experienced is -43C, on 2015 Feb 04 at the Kasabonika Lake First Nation in northern Ontario, Canada (53.53338, -88.60211, 191m amsl).
There was a strong breeze that day, and applying the windchill factor the temperature was equivalent to -51.3C.
In my native Scotland, when hill-walking with friends in the Central Highlands in January 1982, on the summit plateau (~1,100m amsl) we experienced -34C according to a calibrated mercury thermometer. That day later became a crawl on the plateau due to severe gale force winds and I can only guess that the windchill temperature must have been around -50C."
Doug — Blenheim, ON
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"-17 degrees with 40mph & higher wind gusts in a tent at approx 17,000' while climbing Denali in Alaska (at that time named Mt McKinley). We made the top, 20,310', the next day.
I've been in colder temperatures but not under those conditions."
Donna — Walsenburg, CO
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"Well on December 31, 1973 it was cold registering at -42.2C, nothing at all like the balmy +9.5C experienced on December 7, 1987, this is to remember the month of December...however.
But that was not the coldest ever that I experienced, as on January 22, 1966 it was -43.9C, (-47.02 degrees Fahrenheit) and this minimum of -43.9C was matched on January 29, 1969. On neither of these days was school cancelled, kids just bundled up and off they went to school wearing leotards with their dresses instead of socks, and stuffing skirts into ski pants, and wearing a scarf alongside the toque. On these days the lesson painfully learned not to stick the tongue onto cold metal at all On the other hand the warmest that we have had in January that I remember is +7C (+44.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on January 11, 1986. Yet, if one was 123 years old, they may say that the coldest they experienced was on January 31, 1893 when it hit -48.9C (-56.02 degrees Fahrenheit) , followed by the record breaking temperature of -50.0C (-58 degrees Fahrenheit) of February 01, 1893 colder that the -43.9C (-47.02 degrees Fahrenheit) of December 22, 1892 and those who lived through the depression years may remember the high of +10C (+50 degrees Fahrenheit) on January 30, 1931, +12.8C (+55.04 degrees Fahrenheit) on February 19, 1931 and also celebrated the warm temperature of +14.4C (+57.92 degrees Fahrenheit) on December 5, 1939. But even our February's keep pace, as on February 8, 1972 it was -41.1C (-42.52 degrees Fahrenheit) just 44 years ago . And though November this year was very mild, and the extended autumn weather was appreciated after a bout of early snow of October, folks still experienced the very cold snap of December- where it was so cold you can toss water up in the air, and it freezes before it hits the ground.
So, even though the query was “What’s the coldest temperature you have ever personally experienced?” it is also quite a conversation to speak of the mild days during a cold season, or during a particular cold snap.
For instance overnight January 26,1984 to January 27, 1984 the temperature was cold: 12 midnight -16.3C (+2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) 4, and a wind chill of -25C (-13 degrees Fahrenheit) the wind speed was 15 km/hr (9 mi/hr), and this was the typical type of weather for January of that year. The low of January 26 was -25.4C (-13.7 degrees Fahrenheit)with a wind chill of -35C (-31 degrees Fahrenheit) At 11 a.m. the temperature was -0.7 C degrees Fahrenheit) , and at noon +3.7C (+38.5 degrees Fahrenheit) the snow on the ground was quickly melting into a slick ice sheet, and why is January 27, 1984 remembered, as we tried to navigate the ice, and the freshly fallen snow of just that morning which was quickly changing to rain, ~ it made a unique experience in trying to get to the hospital to have our baby, and get into the vehicle and navigate the icy roads with a passion to arrive at the hospital before the baby arrived in the car. So the tread on frozen ground and on snow was replaced by ice and slippery conditions for both pedestrian and vehicle alike. By 1:00 p.m. or 13:00 hours, on January 27, 1984 the temperature was +5.0 C (+41 degrees Fahrenheit) and the wind was gusting to 56 km/hr (35 mi/hr). But what a balmy day which turned a wind chill of -25C going to melting and much much warmer in the same day and long story short, the baby arrived safe and sound in the hospital. Rain and mild temperatures in January are not very common here in Saskatchewan Canada, but such was the case on this day, indeed.
In 1970, the Canadian Prime Minister converted Canada to the Metric System from the Imperial system, and on April 1, 1975, Canada's weather system went metric. So for our cold extremes, they would be remembered in Fahrenheit, and not Celsius.
And looking back on our weather, it is interesting that our years of tumbling and frolicking in the cold weather in the snow on toboggans, and skis, succeeded best in the years with snow on the ground (not like this year, when no skis nor sleds, nor toboggans are out and about, and the ice rinks are just recently flooded and frozen to ice). So on January 10, 2007, we received a whopping 36.0 cm (14 inches) of snowfall that day, and on January 30, 1974, there was 51 cm (20 inches) of snow to play in on the ground, and there was an extreme snow depth of 54 cm (21.3 inches) on February 25, 1956 followed by 61 cm (24.4 inches) of snow depth on the ground as of February 7, 1956 that same year.. ON December 2, 1936, those older than I, may remember the 28.4 cm (11 inches) of snow that arrived, but I do remember the 48 cm (19 inches) of snow on the ground March 9, 1974, an amazing amount of snow, which children soon shaped into snowmen, snow forts, and snow balls. It was arduous to trudge through 33 cm (13 inches) of snow arriving on January 21, 1974 I don't remember the huge snow fall of October 15, 1930 as 35.6 cm (14 inches) of snow which arrived to bring forth the dirty thirties. But the huge snowfall of October 16, 1984 of 36.7 cm (1.2 feet or 14.5 inches) took many by surprise, even the trees, as the leafy boughs took on the onerous weight, and cars ended up in the ditches or stranded on snow drifts across the highways, the undercarriage of the cars, hung up on the snow plowed up in front of and under the vehicle.
So long and short of it all, if it is going to be cold, and if there is -40C (-40 degrees Fahrenheit) or colder temperatures, it should be with snow on the ground, so that snow angels can be made, and folks can get out on skis, toboggans and sleds to enjoy the outdoors. If there is snow on the ground arriving well before the cold weather snap, then the snow forts, and snow men can be constructed, and hills and ski trails groomed before the cold weather arrives, though in latter years, recently, not enough snow arrives to tunnel through the snow. This year one cannot even make a snow fort with the use of a shovel, as there is literally barely any snow coverage on the ground, and actual ground is more evident than snow depth. And yet the pioneers speak of winters where the snow is so deep, that in the spring they literally found cows which they had lost during the winter trapped in the high branches of trees as the snow was that deep. The pioneers have pictures of trains where the train tracks were so covered in snow that the tunnels made for the trains had snow banks much greater than the train itself. So this year during the cold snap there is no snow fort, nor snow men outside, just folks making coloured ice globes for Christmas, and flooding ice rinks for late season skating and hockey games up here in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada"
Julia — Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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"It was January, 1989, and we were raising our young family in Anchorage, AK. An historic cold snap gripped most of the state for a couple of weeks, as evidenced by frozen water mains and frozen everything. We were tired of minus 20 daily highs, but we had a plan to escape to Hawaii, just five short hours away by plane! Our friend drove us to Anchorage International that morning at 6am, and the time and temperature sign showed minus 34F. As we pulled up to the crowded terminal, I noticed a whipping wind and remembered that we were dressed for the tropics. Yikes! I grabbed a baby blanket and wrapped our toddler son in it, opened the car door, and felt the 25mph wind. I turned and ran into a gust toward a distant terminal entrance holding my little son close, but I saw the look on his face: he knew this was the end. His face made it clear that he had never wanted to die like this, but tragically, he had no choice, and a terrible death it would be! We made it inside, and thankfully he survived. Once we boarded, it took 30 minutes for the mechanics to get the jet engines started. When they did, the passengers on our crowded flight erupted in cheers, because every one of us was horrified at the thought of having our flight cancelled. I've never looked at a wind chill chart until now: minus 34 with a 25mph wind gust is approximately minus 95 degrees, which explains why that 25 meter run into the building felt like a matter of life and death."
Roger — Silverton, OR
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"I am a Canadian who was born and raised in Medicine Hat, Alberta. It seemed that frigid Arctic outbreaks interspersed with balmy chinooks were standard fare during the winter times while growing there.
While I may not have any substantiating evidence, I believe the coldest temperature that I ever experienced was about -45 degrees Fahrenheit. In Canada these days, I would peg that temperature at about -43 degrees Celsius. I recently commented that spitting saliva at those temps would guarantee fresh ice cubes at your feet.
At -35 degrees Fahrenheit, I would bundle myself warmly, and take a glass of warm water outside and slowly pour drops of it onto a concrete table top, and watch it freeze. Of course, I would watch as the water in the glass started to freeze, and ensure that the glass would not break by taking the empty glass indoors after about an hour outside.
Physics, chemistry, and meteorology interests were nascent during those times.
Since then, living near Merritt, BC, and now an adult, I’ve seen a few close to -41degrees Fahrenheit days, and I am always anticipating the furnace dying inconveniently, or a sudden lack
f electrical power, or the well house water pump becoming a useless ice cube.
Cheers from Canada, with fresh ice cubes in my soft drink !"
Simon
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"I had the pleasure (?) of visiting Fort McMurray, Alberta, in December a few years ago. While I was there, I don’t believe the temperature ever rose above 0 degrees F. The morning I left, the radio said the local temp was -35 C (-31 F). I was exposed to this while walking from the hotel to the airport taxi. It took my breath away."
Allan — West Grove, PA
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"We live in Manitoba, about 50 kilometers north of Winnipeg. Back in February 1997, we had a spell of 13 straight days when the daytime high temperatures never got warmer than -30° C (= -22° F) even without calculating in the wind chill. One of those mornings I drove to work in Winnipeg when it was -42° C (= -43.6° F). That was a really dumb thing to do, since machinery behaves oddly at those temperatures and the dangers of a breakdown can be severe. But I was twenty years younger and considerably less wise about such things back then. That is the coldest temperature I have personally experienced (and once was quite enough, thank you.)"
Jim — Argyle, Manitoba
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"The Canadian province of Manitoba is situated in the centre of North America so can experience some extreme winter temperatures.
I lived on a military base at a place called Gysumville which was subject to minus 40 degree (the same in either Celsius or Fahrenheit) temps from time to time. Car tires feel like they are made of concrete for the the first few miles of driving,
The brake and clutch pedals take time to return for the first couple of pedal presses.
Changing gears is a test of strength until the transmission is driven far enough to warm up.
Our furnaces would go out due to the oil congealing in the supply line between oil tank and furnace requiring the use of a gasoline blow torch to get the oil flowing again so the furnace could be relighted again.
These temperatures are seen rarely seen now in the southern part of Manitoba now, due to Global warming. We do not miss them at all."
Fred — Winnipeg, Manitoba
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"In the 1990's we lived in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. The overnight lows regularly got down to -44C and I remember a couple of times it got down to -46C. That is without any wind chill, just calm dead cold.
As far as wind chill, I remember in Brandon, Manitoba, my daughter walking to school (and me going to work) in the morning when the school buses didn't go out because the wind chill was -54C.
And I guess the absolute Coldest was in Churchill, Manitoba. It was in the 1990's when Canada still was using the "Watts per Square Metre" scale (that very few people understood) to report wind chill. When we got up in the morning, we needed to walk two blocks to the recreation complex for a curling game. In the lobby of the hotel, there was a sign hanging on the main door stating "Warning : wind chill 2480, be careful ". I think a reasonably accurate conversion for that is -58 or -59C."
Randy — Maryfield, Saskatchewan, Canada
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"The coldest temperatures that I measured as a weather observer at the Earlton Temiskaming Airport (YXR) was in the -39 to -40C range. This happens at least once every winter. We are in Northeastern Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
My favourite cold temperature memory is from way back when I was a child in the 50's. I lived in St. Catharines, Ontario then. We were all squashed into my Grandfather's '52 Chev coming home from visiting friends. My Mom, Grandmother and us 3 kids were huddled under a blanket and still freezing cold in the backseat. My Grandfather told us it was 0 Fahrenheit! We had never experienced a temperature that cold before. My father drove through blowing snow all the way home and we were so happy to get there safely.
St Catharines is in the "banana belt" of Ontario on the edge of Lake Ontario. Temps like that were rare. They feel even colder because of the moist air from the lake.
I can still see and hear my Grandfather saying that after all these years."
Pat —Cobalt, ON
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"I was climbing Denali (Mount McKinley in Alaska) in May of 1986. The daily average temperature was about -20 degrees F for the 3 weeks I was on the mountain. At our camp at 17,000 feet our thermometer registered -43 degrees F, and the wind became so ferocious that it ripped loose objects out of our pockets. So, the wind chill was deadly. It was hard to breathe because the air coming through the face mask was still unbearably cold by the time it reached my lungs, and the wind created a vacuum in the thin air that made me have to suck for air. Fortunately, we had time to build snow walls around our tents before the wind got really bad. We hunkered down for the duration of the storm."
Vicky — Bellvue, CO
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"The coldest weather I've ever experience was in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. I was staying in a motel and heading down into the oil and gas fields the next day. I remember that morning very clearly as we seem to time stamp major events in our brains. I was heading into the dining area for breakfast and a news alert came on that they captured Saddam Hussein, December 13, 2003. The temperature was -54 degrees Celsius, (-65F for us in the US). Those cold winter mornings, if you didn't get a parking stall with an electrical connection for your block heater, you had to keep your vehicle running all night long. The engine ran good, but steering, brakes, all were stiff and not a comfortable feeling driving alone into the bush in that cold of weather.
Other times I was inside the Arctic Circle in northern Russia during the winter. The temperature was consistently below the -40C range and of course dark. When it was that cold and calm, the drilling and production lights would shine up into the dark sky and make beautiful laser beams appearing to shoot up into outer space highlighted by the ice crystals floating in the air. If you walked away from camp, it was a beautiful image as the ice crystals lit up like you were in outer space, and our camp was the space ship. Outer space was everything else around you in total darkness."
Jack — Lavon, TX
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"I just began reporting to CoCoRaHS two days ago. The coldest temperature I ever experienced was in January 1975 at Fort Greely, Alaska, latitude 64 degrees N. We had a 10-day cold snap, and on the night that I was Staff Duty Officer, I had to inspect ammunition bunkers on-post to make sure that the Russians hadn't gotten into them. That evening, the official temperature on post was -64F. The air was still as glass!"
Robert — Homedale, ID
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"While I was stationed at US Coast Guard LORAN Station Port Clarence, Alaska, I was the Public Works Petty Officer. During February 1971, while outside, the still air temperature was -47 degrees F. Later that day we experienced a "white-out" that dropped the wind chill to -128 degrees F. (I did suffer a minor case of frostbite to my nose.)"
Pete — Orange Park, FL
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"My personal experience is -30 deg F in late December 1976 at Mt. Tremblant, Quebec, Canada while skiing. A few times approaching that in upstate NY northeast of Binghamton."
Bart — Fernandina Beach, FL
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"The coldest temperature I have experienced (that I paid attention to the temperature) was about 43 degrees below zero. I won't say Fahrenheit or Celsius, because it doesn't matter for this degree of accuracy. It was definitely colder than -40, in any case. The only time I ever got frost bitten was from shoveling my neighbor's sidewalk at 40 below. What I remember most, though, was my snot freezing. Don't rub your nose in cold weather like that, or you could stab the inside of your nose with an ice crystal.
I also biked to school in that kind of weather, but in that case, I wore a ski mask, which had over an inch of hoar frost on it by the time I got to school.
The above occurred in Swift Current, Saskatchewan some time in the '70s."
Victor — Austin, TX
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"1996-Feb-01 Thursday, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, -42°C / -52 windchill
I rode my bicycle the 12 kilometres from home to work that morning. It’s my record low temp for bicycling. Returning home that afternoon it was -35°C / -48 windchill.
The next day was milder -- -41°C in the morning and -30°C in the afternoon … my 2nd coldest bicycling day ever.
Three days of morning lows < -30°C followed before the temperatures moderated significantly, with a high of +3°C on Tuesday Feb 6.
I was acclimatized for those two mornings of < -40°C: The previous three weeks in January had morning lows averaging -33°C. I bicycled (or ran) to work on 12 of those days."
Kevin — Winnipeg, Manitoba
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"This is a three weeks of -60 degrees F in the 60's. You could stand out in the cold and here the air crackle, the silence was intense and no air motion. When the break in the weather came, it would be a warm wind bringing the temp to +32 degrees and higher."
Joanne — Fairbanks, AK
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"Wanted to respond to the inquiry about the coldest temperature. I was stationed at Ft Greely Alaska from 1980-1982 as a weather observer. We had a test site called Bolio Lake Bed that sit down in a bowl on a frozen lake. There was an instrument shelter with a thermometer and thermograph. One morning I measured -72 degrees Fahrenheit but was upset because the thermograph only went to -70. So much for a record low temperature."
Ralph - Nashville, TN
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"In MN: -22 on 12/18/2016
In Juneau, AK: -30 in 1971"
Bob — Waseca, MN
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"Stephen: -60 (1971) Fairbanks, Alaska without wind chill factor
Jackie: -51 (1997) Nenana, Alaska without wind chill factor"
Jackie — Soldotna, AK
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"The coldest experience I have had was in January of 1981. I was feeding cattle in an open tractor at -40 degrees. I had to get off the tractor, and build a fire to warm myself enough to drive back to the house."
Howard —Cochrane, Alberta, Canada
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"Coldest temperature experienced was -54F ~1 February 1976 stationed near Fairbanks, Alaska"
Ralph
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“The coldest temperature I’ve ever experience was in Fairbanks, Alaska on February 4, 1999 when the official airport temperature bottomed out at -55F.
However, there is much more to the story.
In Fairbanks, dense cold air pools at the lowest elevations where temperatures can often be even colder than at the airport. Fred Meyer on that particular day reached -70F although I saw a reading of -66F. Of course electronic temperature signs are not the most reliable but the truck I was driving was stalling out at the nearby traffic light and I was forced to turn off my interior heater to keep my engine from losing essential heat.
Gasoline freezes around -60F but my most immediate problem was that if I didn’t move (I was at a red light), my tires would freeze (known as square tires) and once moving would flatten instantly. It was crazy for a few moments but the light changed and I headed home were the temperature was a warm -52F. I never made it into Fred Meyer that day!
From Jan 26 to Feb 12, the minimum temperature stayed below -35F, a record streak that has yet to been broken.”
Jan — Cheyenne, WY
OTHER INTERNATIONAL
"When I was in the US Army from 1961-3 I was stationed temporarily in Greenland at a weather station about 20 miles east of Thule air base in support of the operations there. We did hourly observations and reported them by radio.
One particularly chilly morning I went out to take my first observation of the day at 6:00 am. I got the shock of my life when the thermometer read -43F. I’ve never seen that low a temperature since and don't really want to."
Brant — Milford, NH
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"My coldest was at Thule A.F.B., Thule, Greenland. In January of 1953 I spent 12 hours walking a security perimeter around 3 B-36 bombers and the temp was 62 degrees below zero, no wind chill factored in. There were two 20 minute breaks during this period of duty. "
Ken —Ooltewah, TN
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"My coldest day was in 1990 at McMurdo Station Antarctica, I was the Satellite Tracking Manager for S-051 project that winter-over. We hit the minus 90's that July with winds in excess of 45mph, I think they told us the wind chill's were -130's. I don't recall the exact dates, been a while. Over all it was considered a mild winter-over by the more seasoned members of the W/O crew. Some of the "Old-Timers" said the 1989 W/O they hit -105 on June of that year."
Dave — Pflugerville, Texas
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"The coldest temperature I ever experienced was in Oct 1964, when I was in the Navy and at South Pole Antarctica. It was -49F. That was one degree from the minimum we were allowed to be exposed to for outdoor work. I suspect you are looking for a CONUS minimum so this entry may not count, and I understand that."
David — Avon,Indiana
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"Experienced -70F at South Pole Station in the 80's. Experienced what I believe was about -55 in Yellowstone Park while ski camping - but the thermometer bottomed out at -50, so that's a guess. It was cold.
I’ve recorded -20 to -30 numerous times at my station site."
William — Lander, WY
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"During the year period from November 1971 to November 1972, I was at South Pole Station as MIC.
One of my duties there was to make Surface weather observations. On two occasions the temperature fell to -100F. These occurred on July 5 and July 23 1972."
Edward — Former MIC at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
Current residence, Norman, OK
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"The coldest weather I have ever been in was during the winter of 1977. I was stationed in Southern Germany and our site was in the foothills of the Alps. We were issued layers of cold weather gear but this night it was so cold that it seeped through the clothes and chilled us in less than 2 hours. I wore a scarf and parka and when I came in from my shift I had ice hanging from both. I couldn't even wear my wire-rim glasses. I'm not sure of the actual temperature because we didn't have a thermometer to read, but it is the coldest I have ever been."
Willard — Lakeland, FL
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