Cold enough for you? Most certainly.
Even by Minnesota standards it’s been frightfully frigid. Since Christmas Day, below-zero temperatures have been a daily occurrence, with the exception of Dec. 28, when the low was 2 degrees.
The coldest days of the past week were Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 30-31, when daily lows were minus 15 and minus 19 degrees, respectively. Northwesterly breezes Saturday morning produced wind chills of negative 38 degrees.
New Year’s Day also brought a 15 degree-below zero early-morning reading. But temps warmed up to a practically balmy 2 degrees that afternoon.
The recent temperatures have been below historic norms. The average maximum temperature for New Year’s Day in Minnesota is 24 degrees, with a low of 8 degrees.
Five-straight days of light snowfalls, Wednesday through Sunday, totaled about three inches at the Tracy Airport, enough to get out a shovel, but not enough to start up the snowblower.