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January 24 - 31 Cold Blast


MNstorms
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2 hours ago, IWXwx said:

SBN crushed their old record with a -20°. The old record was -11° in 1936.

Not bad considering their position in relation to the Lake.

This was a really good shot at breaking the all-time record, -22.  The wind wasn't off the lake, but it just never went calm.  They would have had a real shot at -24/25.  I saw that LaPorte made it to -25.

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2 hours ago, beavis1729 said:

Made a late rally here, dropped to -27. And I wouldn’t call MBY a great radiator. Decent at best.

ORD was kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Too much west wind, and there was no colder air to advect in, given that the background airmass was warming significantly. Yeah, it would have been helpful for them to radiate for longer...but the winds did die down at many nearby areas at least for a little while, with a corresponding temp drop. So why not at ORD? It’s really hard to physically explain how ORD only managed -21, especially with the great starting point of -14 at 6 pm yesterday...one of the coldest temps in the area at that time. If you would have asked me at 6 pm last night, I would have said 50% chance of hitting -28, 90% chance of -25, 99% chance of -23. 

What it tells me is that ORD is an even worse radiator than we thought. Would it have really mattered if winds were calmer most of the night? I guess we will never know. Places in northern WI that warmed up to near 0 yesterday afternoon still fell to -30 this morning.

Nice to see new all time record lows at MLI and RFD. 

Ridge position was not quite ideal for Chicago, but the other thing is that it's just harder to get the winds to die down at night in the more urban setting of Chicago.  This is noticeable at any time of year, even in summer when outlying places will have light winds (under 10 mph)... meanwhile ORD will still be 15 mph gusting to 23 or whatever.

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Just now, KokomoWX said:

Kokomo finished with a modest 36 hours (continuously) below zero with a -16 on Wednesday and -11 on Thursday.  Not too extreme considering most everyone else's reporting but still enough to close schools and businesses for one or two days.

I've always wondered why we stay warmer than points west even as close as LAF.  I get it if we get the wind across the lake but if we get it from the W or WNW we still tend to be warmer than points directly west of us.  Is there some invisible Mt's to are west and we're getting some down sloping lol?:weenie:

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18 minutes ago, RCNYILWX said:

The departure at ORD yesterday was -40, which may be 2nd largest departure on record to 12/24/1983 at about -44. The largest departure in March 2012 was +35 on 3/20. If anyone can think of others, let me know.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

2/9/1899 also had -40

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48 consective hours below 0 at ORD and counting.  Looks like several more hours will be added. 

This is the longest hourly streak below 0 since Feb 1996, which was below 0 for 67 hours from the evening of Feb 1 into afternoon of Feb 4.  Won't get to 67 hours this time but anything over 48 hours is pretty rare for Chicago.

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2 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

48 consective hours below 0 at ORD and counting.  Looks like several more hours will be added. 

This is the longest hourly streak below 0 since Feb 1996, which was below 0 for 67 hours from the evening of Feb 1 into afternoon of Feb 4.  Won't get to 67 hours this time but anything over 48 hours is pretty rare for Chicago.

Tied for 4th longest streak on record.

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6 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

48 consective hours below 0 at ORD and counting.  Looks like several more hours will be added. 

This is the longest hourly streak below 0 since Feb 1996, which was below 0 for 67 hours from the evening of Feb 1 into afternoon of Feb 4.  Won't get to 67 hours this time but anything over 48 hours is pretty rare for Chicago.

I remember 4-5 days ago it was looking like we could stay below zero through Sunday.  Man I'm glad the models backed off of that idea lol.

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DTW smashed the record low max and record low the last 2 days. (The  Record low yesterday was unusually high for this time of year, but it would not have mattered anyway)

 

Jan 30th

Old record low max: 7°

2019 max: 1°

Old record low: -4°

2019 low: -13°

 

Jan 31st

Old record low max: 7°

2019 max: 3°

Old record low: -7°

2019 low: -14°

 

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Records recap for Chicago and Rockford
 
ORD_record_cold-1.thumb.png.51378064f19a5475657c4f73d02508ce.png
 
RFD_record_temps.thumb.png.b35dbc32b3a152b53f8bb07e3c30205a.png
 
I was working on some more numbers from this stretch, plan to add them to the site tomorrow. Was going to put out the stat about this being only the 5th occurrence of consecutive -20 or colder lows.

In discussing with a coworker how ORD only got to -21 this morning, we speculated how cold it may have gotten before all the new runways and development in the area and also a change in the siting of the ASOS. Considering that DPA got to -29, it's possible ORD may have been very close to the record everything else being equal.

Also, hard to say how much closer it would've been if winds had been calm all night. I know beavis mentioned that it may just be the site is not a good radiational cooling site anymore and we'll need the advection part of the cold shot to deliver in future extreme cold air masses.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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14 minutes ago, RCNYILWX said:

In discussing with a coworker how ORD only got to -21 this morning, we speculated how cold it may have gotten before all the new runways and development in the area and also a change in the siting of the ASOS. Considering that DPA got to -29, it's possible ORD may have been very close to the record everything else being equal.
 

DPA and ORD can't really be compared, even when removing the newer development around ORD.

It is very developed around ORD overall, with dense business parks and dense suburban areas surrounding, and ORD is also much larger overall.

With DPA it's a small airport...It has a "large" rural like area just to the north heading towards Wayne, and then also south with Fermilab, and also to the east in less populated northern portions of West Chicago.

If anything, PWK is a much better comparison to ORD. PWK has dense suburban area and dense business parks to the north, east and south. Only real difference is the narrow forest-like area along the Des Plaines river just west. 

This is why PWK and ORD often have similar temps on the hotter days in the warm season and colder days in the cold season.

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13 hours ago, beavis1729 said:

ORD was kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Too much west wind, and there was no colder air to advect in, given that the background airmass was warming significantly. Yeah, it would have been helpful for them to radiate for longer...but the winds did die down at many nearby areas at least for a little while, with a corresponding temp drop. So why not at ORD? It’s really hard to physically explain how ORD only managed -21, especially with the great starting point of -14 at 6 pm yesterday...one of the coldest temps in the area at that time. If you would have asked me at 6 pm last night, I would have said 50% chance of hitting -28, 90% chance of -25, 99% chance of -23. 

What it tells me is that ORD is an even worse radiator than we thought. Would it have really mattered if winds were calmer most of the night? I guess we will never know. Places in northern WI that warmed up to near 0 yesterday afternoon still fell to -30 this morning.

No doubt the winds were the issue. ORD had winds of 5-15mph all night, as did other metro OBS sites, which kept temps from dropping much. As you said, with no CAA associated with the winds, there was nothing to significantly drop the temp.

Out west, the wind situation was much better...though there were still issues. You would see temps drop quickly with calm winds, only to have winds kick up to 5mph and temps rise...with that progression having occurred for a while at many OBS sites.

There was just enough gradient on the northeast side of the ridge, preventing winds from totally going calm out west, and be much lower in to metro...which would have lead to much colder temps everywhere with perfect radiational cooling conditions. Probably would have seen sites like SQI/RPJ/FEP/ARR/DPA end up near -40.

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ORD is back up to 0, which ends the streak at 53 consecutive hours below freezing (If I counted correctly.)

This makes it the 4th longest such streak on record.

Most Consecutive Hours Below 0:
1. 98 Ending 12/26/1983 11AM
2. 66 Ending 2/4/1996 2PM
3. 60 Ending 1/11/1982 8AM
4. 52 Ending 1/31/2019 11PM
5. 48 Ending 1/21/1985 8AM
6. 45 Ending 1/19/1994 2PM
7. 44 Ending 1/6/1988 1PM
7. 44 Ending 1/16/1994 12PM
9. 43 Ending 1/17/1977 1PM
10. 42 Ending 1/17/1982 11PM

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Other Chicago cold stats...

Coldest Windchills:
1. -60 1/10/1982
2. -59 12/24/1953
3. -58 1/20/1985
4. -53 1/17/1982
5. -52 1/30/2019
5. -52 2/9/1933
7. -50 1/18/1994
8. -48 1/16/1977
9. -48 1/18/1930
10. -44 1/15/1994

Coldest Noon Temps:
1. -21 1/10/1982
2. -18 1/30/2019
3. -17 1/20/1985
4. -16 12/24/1985
5. -15 2/9/1933
5. -15 1/22/1936
5. -15 1/16/1982
8. -14 1/18/1994
8. -14 1/6/2014
10. -13 1/16/1977

Coldest Low Temps On Record:
-27 1/20/1985
-26 1/10/1982
-25 12/24/1983
-25 1/16/1982
-23 1/30/2019
-23 1/19/1985
-23 1/17/1982
-23 12/24/1872
-22 1/21/1984
-21 1/31/2019
-21 1/18/1994
-21 12/23/1983
-21 12/22/1872
-21 2/9/1899

Coldest High Temps On Record:
-11 1/18/1994
-11 12/24/1983
-10 1/30/2019
-10 1/25/1897
-8 2/9/1899
-7 1/16/1977
-6 12/23/1983
-6 1/29/1966
-6 2/9/1933
-6 1/4/1884

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