Wunderground.com - Dr. Jeff Masters, 1/22/13
A classic January North American cold wave has plunged much of the continent into the deep freeze and brought epic lake effect snows to the shores of the Great Lakes. The intense cold was centered over central Ontario this Tuesday morning, where a remarkable low temperature of -49°F (-45.0°C) was observed at Lansdowne House, Ontario. This was the coldest temperature measured at a major observing station in all of North America today. In the U.S., below-zero temperatures were recorded Tuesday morning in eleven states east of the Rockies.
The coldest air was centered over Northern Minnesota, where the temperature plummeted to -35°F (-37°C) at Crane Lake at 7 am CST, with calm winds. The coldest wind chills were observed in Southern Manitoba, Northern Wisconsin, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where the clockwise flow of air around a high pressure system centered over Iowa brought bitter cold winds. The wind chill at Ironwood, Michigan hit -42°F at 7 am this morning, thanks to a temperature of -17°F combined with a wind of 17 mph. The wind chill hit -40° F (-40°C) at Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Figure 1. Visible satellite image from 10:45 am EST January 22, 2013 shows multiple bands of lake effect snow streaming off of Lake Erie (lower left), and one very concentrated band of snow affecting the east shore of Lake Ontario over Oswego, New York (center right of image.) Image credit: NOAA.
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