A historic cold outbreak has led in the coldest air in decades across the United States, reaching all the way to the Rio Grande and bringing record amounts of snow and ice to the Deep South.
Here are some of the records that have been broken across the United States by the cold weather as well as some of the more interesting statistics recorded due to the extreme temperatures.
Extreme cold yet a record high
There was a 130-degree spread in temperatures across the US yesterday, from 90 degrees in Florida to 40 below zero in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
And while hundreds of record lows are being set in the central US, Miami hit a record high heat index of 91 on Sunday.
More than one-third of the continental US area was below zero on Monday. Expand the measurement to areas with temperatures below freezing and that includes more than 79% of the country.
Wind chill warnings and advisories cover all or portions of 20 states from stretching from the Canadian border to Mexico, encompassing more than 68 million people.
The outbreak is bringing the coldest air in decades to many locations across the central United States:
- Dallas dipped to 5 degrees, the coldest temperature the city has seen since 1989.
- Oklahoma City hit 6 degrees below zero, the city’s coldest temperature since 1989, and the wind chill reached a record 29 degrees below zero.
- Austin and San Antonio in Texas both had single-digit temperatures for the first time since 1989.
- Corpus Christi, Texas, dipped down to 17 degrees, the coldest it’s been there since 1989.
- Rapid City, South Dakota has had five consecutive nights of 12 degrees below zero. The last time this happened was in 1943.
- The wind chill dipped to 32 degrees below zero in Kansas City, Missouri, the lowest since 1989.
- Monday’s high of 3 degrees below zero and a low of 21 degrees below zero was the coldest day in Omaha, Nebraska, in 25 years.
A blanket of snow and ice
Winter storm watches, warnings or advisories are posted in at least 40 states and cover around 154 million people, roughly half the population of the country.
Snow fell as far south as Brownsville in the southernmost part of Texas, where measurable snow has only occurred twice since 1898, when statistics started being recorded.
Lake Charles, Louisiana, which saw two direct hits from hurricanes in the past six months, experienced thundersnow on Monday morning.
Oklahoma City and Dallas saw daily snowfalls – 6 and 4 inches, respectively – that reached the top 10 for both cities. Both could see another top 10 snowfall on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Abilene, Texas, reported a new record of daily snowfall with 14.8 inches of snow on Sunday, smashing the previous record of 9.3 inches from 1996.