Coldest temperature you've experienced?

Steve

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2006
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The recent cold snap has me wondering what's the coldest temperature that you have been around? I once spent the night inside the house when it got down to minus 42 F. It was probably in the high minus 30's the next day when I was out and about. What extreme's have other experienced?
 
I pushed grocery carts at Hy-Vee in high school when the daytime high was -28. This cold snap is nothing...
 
It got down to about -30 one morning up here in Waterloo back in the early 90's. Was a calm morning, so didn't seem that cold, but boy did the car start slow.

Wind chill makes it seem worse. I've been out in some snow storm with - 40 or 50 wind chills that were really cold ones.
 
I'm sorry, but I would like some documented proof of this.

That was with the old formula. It's extremely well documented in 1996. The entire state got school called off by the governor for a day or two because of how cold it was.


I don't know if this gives the old formula numbers, but in Tower, MN it was recorded at almost -100 one day

Cold Mid-January

"THE COLDEST MINNESOTA TEMPERATURE EVER RECORDED WAS MINUS 60 WHICH
OCCURRED AT TOWER ON FEBRUARY 2, 1996"

That's just temperature, not wind chill


"On the same date that the Minnesota state record minimum temperature
record was set on February 2, 1996 (-60 near Tower) Governor Arne
Carlson cancelled schools for cold a second time. In the Twin Cities at
6am February 2, 1996 the air temperature was -30 degrees F with a wind"

Historic Wind Chill Temperatures in Minnesota


It's not giving the wind chill data, but it's somewhere online. Give me a little time to find it.
 
I'm sorry, but I would like some documented proof of this.

I think we're all talking about the same cold snap when daytime highs were in the -20s/-30s, and that's not even factoring windchills (and I think it was the mid-1990s)
 
I forgot about 1982 as well...that was the official record in northern MN at around -100 with the old formula (-70 with the new one).
 
I think we're all talking about the same cold snap when daytime highs were in the -20s/-30s, and that's not even factoring windchills (and I think it was the mid-1990s)

Yes, it was early 1996 and I remember the governor in MN calling school off and not even being able to go outside for more than five minutes unless I wanted to risk my life.
 
Jan 1977...when I was a student at ISU......the wind chill was something like -76, and I walked across campus for an econ class........
 
I was sitting in a hotel in International Falls in 1996 when it was colder than ****. It was about -60 (legit temp without wind chill).
 
Before I moved to Iowa... around 27 degrees. I thought I was going to die.

Lived here for about 10 years, this is about as cold as I've consistently seen it. Still not quite as bad as the cold snap we had last January though.
 
Apparently in Vostok (i don't know whether russia or antarctica) in 2004 recorded a wind chill of -185 degrees F
 
Yes, it was early 1996 and I remember the governor in MN calling school off and not even being able to go outside for more than five minutes unless I wanted to risk my life.

I remember watching the weather that day - most of the upper Midwest that day was colder than the North Pole.
 
I wonder how cold it was in canada during that clipper..

All I know for sure is Fort Frances, Ontario was about -60....of course that's the same town at Int'l Falls...just across the border :biglaugh::wink:

That evening was the only night I ever put anything in my gas tank cause I didn't think my car would start the next morning if I didn't.
 
I lived in barrow alaska for 3 years... tip top north... as far north as you can be... sun doesnt even come out for years... so around -40 or so...
 

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