
It’s Cold In Northern Illinois–But Is It Record-Breaking Cold?
As I write this on Tuesday morning, January 14th, I'm looking at a temperature of 9 degrees above zero, and a "wind chill" or "feels like" temperature of 8 degrees below zero. We've got more even colder weather on the way, with wind chill readings of 15 below zero or more tonight, and more frigid temps by the start of next week.
We've had very little snow so far, but we've had some really nasty cold temperatures, and more are coming. I think it's fair to assume that most of us are really tired of this incredibly frigid weather we've been enduring off and on for nearly two weeks.
I say "most of us" because there are always a few people who start in with the "This weather's not so bad! or "I find this cold weather invigorating!" stuff that just makes you want to shove their face in a snowbank (but don't, that would be...uh...wrong, and where are you going to find a snowbank?).
By the way, in case you hadn't noticed, pretty much the entire Midwest is dealing with these bone-chilling temps. Take a look at this map:
I'm being told that this is a photo of a frozen lake in Wisconsin, not a weather map of the Midwest...but I'm sure you get the overall point. It's cold.
So, How Does The Current Rockford Deep-Freeze Compare With What We've Seen Here In The Past?
The quick answers are that we've been much colder in the past, and it doesn't look like this amazingly cold weather is going to be one for the record books.
I checked some numbers with the National Weather Service to put our current weather system into perspective, and here's what I found:
- We're not that far removed from a record setting low temperature. Rockford's all time low, according to the National Weather Service, was set on January 31st, 2019, when we hit minus-31 degrees (straight temperature, not factoring in wind chill).
- Rockford's coldest winter season ever was when we averaged 14.1 degrees during the winter of 1978-79. The coldest month Rockford ever had was back in 1912, when the month of January had an average temperature of 4.7 degrees.
Finally, just to give you a good shiver, let's take a look at the coldest wind chill ever felt in Rockford. The National Weather Service says that happened on January 20th, 1985. On that date, Rockford's record-setting wind chill number was 72 degrees below zero.
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