Almost 400 Cold Records Broken! – Record Snow in Detroit!!

So much to cover in this episode! Crop Updates… 2019 Harvest Continues…

The most severe early November cold snap in more than a century has plowed over the East Coast, where record low temperatures were set in the majority of population centers Wednesday morning.

Temperatures 20 to 30 degrees below normal covered much of the eastern third of the nation.

Kudos to @NWS for keeping up with all these.

Culling through NWS record statements, Tuesday, alone had 122 daily record lows and 62 daily record cold highs tied or broken, by my estimate, which may be low.

Aftn temps in the 30s in Lower Rio Grande Valley of TX was impressive. https://t.co/7tlVxolcoM

— Jonathan Erdman (@wxjerdman) November 13, 2019

Wednesday morning’s onslaught of low temperature records were set from Texas to Maine, adding to more than 100 other cold records set in the Plains, Midwest, and Tennessee and Ohio valleys on Monday and Tuesday. Weather.com reports that almost 400 records have fallen since the cold snap invaded the Lower 48 on Sunday.

Latest numbers as of 11/14 –

Arctic Cold Surge Smashes Almost 400 Mid-November Records in the Plains, Midwest, South and East

Started noticing a lot of the now former record lows for Nov 12 were from the year 1911. Yeah, we had weather maps back then. And they’re pretty cool. Check it out! pic.twitter.com/VUNZ0uxhh5

— NWS WPC (@NWSWPC) November 13, 2019

Additional records for cold high temperatures were predicted Wednesday afternoon.

The Weather Service described the intensity of the cold as “comparable to the ‘Blue Norther’ of 1911” in which temperatures crashed from near 80 into the teens and 20s in the same day in some areas.

Much of the eastern United States witnessed colder weather than parts of Alaska on Wednesday morning, as the jet stream — which divides cold and warm air — seesawed. And more than 75 percent of Lower 48 states endured freezing temperatures.

Areas in the US that are currently colder than Anchorage, AK, because weather twitter hates that pic.twitter.com/NcfT6IZBnl

— Corey Pieper (@Geostrophic) November 13, 2019

The chill penetrated all the way to the Gulf Coast where the rush of frigid air over the warm waters gave rise to a plume of sea smoke.

Pensacola, Fla., set a record low of 29 degrees — 42 degrees colder than the adjacent Gulf of Mexico water temperature.

Sea smoke over the Gulf of Mexico as the very cold air moves over warmer water. It has been 663 days (Jan. 19th, 2018) since Pensacola has recorded a temperature this low as we sit at a chilly 30 degrees! #NWFL #flwx pic.twitter.com/bN3kLjgDth

— Kaitlin Wright (@wxkaitlin) November 13, 2019

Temperatures fell as low as 13 degrees in central Alabama, where record lows were widespread. Weather.com noted many low temperatures in the Deep South were colder than any observed over the entirety of last winter.

In the Appalachian Mountains, temperatures plummeted into the single digits even as far south as the Mid-Atlantic. Snowshoe and Canaan Valley, ski areas in West Virginia, sank to 1 and 2 degrees. Mount Mitchell, N.C., also fell to just 1 degree. And on Mount Washington, N.H., the mercury plunged to minus-17, a record low for the date, and the fourth-coldest temperature on record during November on the soaring peak.

Temperatures were also impressively low in major cities. Among those setting record lows Wednesday morning? Atlantic City; Birmingham, Ala.; Buffalo; Burlington, Vt.; Charleston, S.C.; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Detroit; Indianapolis; Little Rock; Memphis; New York; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Providence, R.I.; Rochester, N.Y.; South Bend, Ind.; and Syracuse, N.Y.

[Arctic front drops temperatures at Dulles and Baltimore to record lows]

Here are some particularly notable cold temperature milestones set since Tuesday:

• Chicago set records for both its high and low temperatures on Tuesday, 17 and 7 degrees. These high and low temperatures were both the coldest on record so early in the season.
• Milwaukee’s high of 19 degrees Tuesday was its coldest so early in the season.
• Nashville set a record low of 17 Wednesday morning, after a high of just 29 on Tuesday, its coldest high so early in the season on record.
• New York City’s low of 23 degrees Wednesday morning was its third record low in the past week. On Tuesday, it set a record low of 25 and, on Friday, it tied a record low of 29.

The cold was not confined to the Lower 48, but also chilled eastern Canada where numerous record lows (about 5 degrees Fahrenheit or minus-15 Celsius) were set Wednesday morning:

Record #cold morning in Ontario & Southern Quebec, with temperatures in the negative mid-teens for most. Windsor even breaks its record for any day in November, previously -15.6°C on Nov 30, 1958! #ONwx #MeteoQC #Toronto #Montréal pic.twitter.com/P2M2oU0hxN

— Patrick Duplessis (@Pat_wx) November 13, 2019

Abnormally cold weather has prevailed over the zone from the Mountain West to the Northeast for much of November. An index describing the severity of winterlike weather, based on both snow and cold, classified conditions as “extreme.”

Lots of cities are in the “extreme” category of @MRCC‘s Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index (https://t.co/sMBdKGK47F) early on. A record start in Milwaukee (12.9″ of snow and -12.0° anomaly since Oct 29) and Amarillo (5.5″ of snow, -11.9° anomaly since Oct 24) among others. pic.twitter.com/4B97uJDKxl

— Maxar | Weather Desk (@Maxar_Weather) November 13, 2019

Some of the cities experiencing these extreme winter conditions include Buffalo; Detroit; Louisville; Nashville; Milwaukee; Chicago; Kansas City, Kan.; Des M oines; Minneapolis; Denver; and Boise, Idaho.

While the intensity of cold weather is forecast to ease somewhat in the coming days, temperatures will remain below normal over the eastern half of the nation through the weekend.

A milder weather regime may take hold around the second half of next week.

GSMari

GSM Researcher

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