Will Polar Vortex Crush Coldest-Day Records Across America?

ACROSS AMERICA — The weather gurus warned the polar vortex, teaming with a wicked wind, would make it miserable across the north-central United States for the next week.

They weren’t wrong.

We’d ask “how cold is it?” if a) it weren’t such a tired joke and b) if we thought it was possible for you to manage the answer through your chattering teeth.

Fortunately, we don’t have to.

The National Weather Service has invoked frightful words and phrases such as “polar vortex” and “life-threatening cold” to describe the arctic air that settled over the Upper Midwest last weekend.

But what’s this the coldest it’s ever been in cold-weather states — and in places it rarely gets cold?

The coldest weather ever in the United States was recorded at Fort Yukon, Alaska, on Jan. 23, 1971, when the record cold temperature of 80 degrees below zero, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Center for Environmental Education. The coldest-ever continental U.S. temperature was minus 70 on Jan. 20, 1954, in Rogers Pass, Montana.

Neither is particularly surprising given their location on the map, but residents of Hawley Lake, Arizona, surely woke up to a surprise when the morning temperature on Jan. 7, 1971, was 40 degrees below zero.

Even in parts of paradise — Hawaii, that is — the mercury didn’t make it above 12 degrees on May 17, 1979.

See Also: The Polar Vortex Returns: Prevent Pipe-Freezing; Should You Warm Up Your Car?

That temperature record may not be broken in this blast of bitter arctic air, but the polar vortex is unusual because the frigid cold is expected to stick around at least through Valentine’s Day,

A meteorological phenomenon that hasn't hit the United States since 2019, a polar vortex is a large area of low pressure located near the poles; and at times during the winter months, the low pressure breaks down, sending south all that bottled-up cold air.

The result? Extremely frigid temperatures and huge plunges of cold air.

This one is living up to its billing.

It has been frightfully cold over much of the north-central United States. On Tuesday, double-digit subzero temperatures were common as far south as Iowa, and the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota, warned the frigid temperatures are made worse by a wind that may make it feel like minus 50 degrees through Sunday.

Temperatures may struggle to make it above zero in many areas over the next week. The stretch of bitterly cold weather was expected to plunge every U.S. state, including Hawaii, below freezing.

Don’t lose hope. Spring is coming, and summer after that — though now might not be the time to tell you summer can bring extreme heat to many areas of the United States. The record high temperature anywhere in the United States was recorded on July 10, 1913, when the mercury reached 134 degrees in Greenland Ranch, California.

But even if it does get that hot again, we won’t be missing the polar vortex, will we?