Growing up in Rochester, cold winters were a constant, but the end of January 2019 was a little different. Extreme cold, with wind chills as low as -60°F caused schools to close, Mayo Clinic to cancel non-urgent visits, and most everyone to huddle up inside. By the morning of Jan 30, the bitter cold and wind caused the “feels like” temp to be between -30° to -60°F around southeast Minnesota. The weather service warned of frostbite in minutes, and warned everyone to stay indoors, and to only go out for emergencies.
A portion of the polar vortex, normally a tight section of frigid air over the Arctic, slid south after a sudden stratospheric warming. This means that temperatures in the polar stratosphere spiked by tens of degrees within days, causing the usual west-to-east winds to weaken, resulting in the vortex becoming displaced or splitting open, and opening the door for Arctic air to spill south. In Minnesota, some areas saw temps bottom out near all-time records, and Rochester spent days below zero with life-threatening wind chills (Rao et al., 2019).
School was cancelled for an entire week, and sport and activity programs did not meet. Many people stayed home or were unable to get to work due to car troubles caused by the cold. For those that did venture out, simple errands or trips to work were very uncomfortable, and often involved quick sprints from the parking lot to the front door of the building.
Even though the Midwest is warming, individual cold snaps can still be brutal. Events like in January 2019 show how atmospheric issues can send a chunk of arctic air further south. It is important for Minnesotans to be prepared for events like these, by stocking up on cold weather gear, and knowing where to go for warmth in an emergency.
References
National Weather Service (La Crosse). Dangerous Cold of Jan 29–31, 2019. (local impacts, warnings, wind-chill values).
Rao, J., Garfinkel, C. I., Chen, H., & White, I. P. (2019). The 2019 New Year stratospheric sudden warming and its real-time predictions in multiple S2S models. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 11155–11174. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030826
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