Comparing Cold Blasts

The main story in the weather department lately has been the frigid weather. Temperatures have been in the single digits since last Thursday, a stretch of 8 days. Warmer air is on the way but the list of consecutive days below zero will extend to 9 as temperatures will seek the negatives again tonight. We haven't seen temperatures this cold since last February. Last February a cold blast lasted from January 31st to February 10th. But was that cold stretch actually cooler than our recent one? I dug back into some temperature statistics to find the answer. It turns out that the average high during the 2007 cold snap was 9.5 degrees while the average high during the latest cold snap was 8.5 degrees. As for the low, the average low in the 2007 blast of cold air was -9.5 degrees, and it was almost -12 degrees in the 2008 cold blast. While the amount of consecutive days with below zero temperatures was longer in 2007 (11 days), the latest stretch of frigid days has actually been colder. Below are some charts and data from both of the cold blasts.

If it is difficult to see this information you can click on the data or the charts and they will increase in size in a new window. Another interesting fact pertaining to the latest cold snap is the coldest temperature. This years coldest temperature is -22 degrees. It happened on two occasions. That is colder than last years coldest temperature when the low dropped to -19 degrees on February 5th.

Until Next Time,

Andrew Thut
News 19 Forecast Team

Comments

[Ellan]

boring.... snoozefest