Will Greendale Beat The Coldest Day On Record?

GREENDALE, WI — The weather gurus warned the polar vortex, teaming with a wicked wind, would make it miserable in Greendale. They weren’t wrong.

We’d ask “how cold is it in Wisconsin?” 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, including Wisconsin, last weekend.

The blast of cold air will send temperatures to the Greendale area to as cold as minus 9 degrees over the next week.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures won’t approach 30 degrees until Feb. 21 and will remain in the teens and lower 20s for highs over the next week. Nighttime lows will reach minus 9 on Saturday night and minus 4 on Sunday night and are expected to remain in the single digits in the overnight hours for most of the next week.

But is this the coldest it’s ever been in Wisconsin?

Not even close.

Wisconsin’s record cold temperature was recorded on Feb. 2 and Feb. 4, 1996, when the temperature in Couderay was minus 55 degrees, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Center for Environmental Education.

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.

Greendale has reported lows in the single digits this week while girding themselves for even colder weather ahead.

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 was 114 degrees, recorded in the Wisconsin Dells on July 13, 1936.

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