February 26, 2019, 4:26 AM EST
| Above: Personnel from local and national media outlets check out the official NWS COOP temperature sensor in Cotton, Minnesota. The sensor measured a temperature of -56°F on January 27 and 31, 2019, the coldest readings in the contiguous U.S. since 1996. The site was also visited by NWS personnel from the Duluth office on the morning of January 31, 2019, to check on the quality of the instruments. They reported that “all of the equipment was in good working order”. The site is located on low ground near a river, which is a relatively new location for the Cotton COOP instrumentation (since late 2014). The former Cotton COOP site existed from 1962 to 2002. Image credit: NWS/Duluth. |
A series of arctic air masses invaded the northern portions of the U.S. Midwest and Plains in late January and early February, bringing the lowest temperatures observed in almost two decades to many sites from Wisconsin to Montana. I thought it opportune to look at what the coldest temperatures ever observed in the lower 48 states have been…