The German climate group EIKE remarked on the fall of cold temperature records across North America in mid-January 2024.
Extreme cold prompted Environment Canada to “issue a warning for extreme cold and arctic conditions for much of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, most of B.C , Saskatchewan, and all of Alberta.”
Indeed, ski resorts closed in many areas due to the extreme cold. EIKE writes:
Oglivie Camp, Yukon, recorded a low of -49.3°C yesterday [January 11] – the lowest temperature in Canada this winter; -48.4 °C was recorded in Watson Lake; a low of -47°C was recorded in the NWT; -43°C in Alberta, and -42°C in British Columbia.
What’s most impressive to me is that at 7pm on Thursday, all weather stations in British Columbia reported temperatures below freezing (the highest temperature was -0.1°C in Tofino, see below) – an incredibly rare occurrence.
Record setting cold was also common in British Columbia, EIKE reports:
Penticton’s daily low of -26.6°C broke a record set in 1950 by more than 3°C; Osoyoos also set a new record with a daily low of -22.3°C, surpassing the previous record set on January 13 (-19.8°C); in the North Okanagan, the temperature in Salmon Arm fell to -30.4°C, breaking the previous all-time high of -27.2°C set in 1911.
Previously, the first Canadian low of the season of -50°C was recorded in Keg River, Alberta on Friday. It eventually reached a low of -51.5 °C, which is also the lowest January temperature in Alberta since 2004 (-52 °C).
Nor was the United States spared the record setting cold. For example, KTEN ABC News, reports that Sherman, Texas set a new low maximum temperature record on Sunday, January 14 of just 18℉, “annihilating the previous record of 26° in 2007.”
On the same date, the National Weather Service reports that new low temperature records were set in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Colorado Springs, Colorado, among other cities and towns.
Reporting on Colorado Springs’ new low temperature record, the Denver Gazette wrote, “The city dropped to -8 degrees at 8:03 a.m. shattering the past record of -6 degrees for Jan. 14.” The previous record had been set in 1917, 107 years previously.
“Colorado Springs is under a Wind Chill Warning now through 11 a.m. Tuesday amid the Polar Vortex that has set in the Pikes Peak region. Dangerously cold wind chills as low as 30 degrees below zero are expected,” the Gazette continued.