Photo: Peak coldest wind chill values in Minnesota and western Wisconsin January 29-30, 2019.
Minnesota, obviously, is known for being cold. Sometimes, however, Minnesota reaches a temperature even cold-enjoying Minnesotans can’t stand. And sometimes, that cold spell can linger for days on end. Enter the January–February 2019 North American Cold Wave, as its Wikipedia entry is admirably titled, the coldest span in my hometown of Apple Valley as well as broader Minnesota since the winter of 1996. While not extremely record breaking in the grand scheme of things, this is the coldest Minnesota has ever been in my lifetime.
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Temperatures in Minnesota dipped below 0℉ on the evening of Monday, January 28, 2019 and would not climb above 0 again until the morning of Friday, February 1. The coldest temperature of the cold wave, -28℉, was reached in the Twin Cities on Wednesday, January 30. On January 31, the town of Cotton, near Duluth, set a statewide record for the coldest daily temperature recorded on the calendar date by reaching -56℉. The wind chills, depicted in the image chosen for this blog post, exemplified the frigid air temperature by making the temperature feel even colder. The cold was the result of strong winds coming directly from the frigid arctic (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)
While not often thought of as destructive natural hazards, extreme hot and cold waves are among the deadliest weather hazards due to their ability to affect large populations over extended periods (Hyndman & Hyndman). Events like these can be extremely dangerous in climates where extreme hot or cold temperatures do not happen very often, but even states like Minnesota can have small disasters during the extreme cold. On Tuesday, January 29, 150 homes in Princeton, about an hour north of Minneapolis, lost natural gas service, resulting in Xcel Energy asking over 400,000 customers to set their thermostats to 63℉ to conserve natural gas until the end of the week (Smith et al.).
During this cold wave, I was a freshman in high school. The extreme cold temperatures, aided by the extreme low wind chills, canceled school for 4 consecutive days. Each night, our district superintendent would make her decision about the status of school for the next day. Seeing 4 cancellations in a row made us students very excited. I spent most of the time hanging out inside with my best friend playing Wii Sports. We also threw pots of boiling water into the sky to watch them instantly become steam and evaporate many times. Many people froze jeans or swim trunks in their front yard.
Photo: Frozen swim trunks and sweatpants on a chilly winter evening.
During these 4 days off of school, we were assigned very minimal work. We had district issued personal iPads that we brought home from school each day. However, as this cold spell was before the pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent shift to online school, we didn’t have the infrastructure to synchronously do class together, and many teachers assigned no work and told us to enjoy the unexpected break.
Works Cited
“Cold Outbreak: January 27-31, 2019.” Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 19 Oct. 2023, www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/cold-outbreak-january-27-31-2019.html#:~:text=Air%20Temperature%20Recap,F%20on%20February%202%2C%201996. Accessed 28 Sept. 2025.
Hyndman, Donald W., and David Hyndman. Natural Hazards & Disasters. Cengage Learning, 2017.
Smith, Mary Lynn, et al. “With Deep Freeze Still on, Minnesota Utility Asks Customers to Turn down Thermostats.” Star Tribune, 31 Jan. 2019, www.startribune.com/with-deep-freeze-still-on-minnesota-utility-asks-customers-to-turn-down-thermostats/505074202. Accessed 28 Sept. 2025.
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