Think this is cold? I guess it depends how long you’ve lived in Minnesota. I vividly remember 1983, my first winter here. Forty-two consecutive days below freezing. Peak misery was Christmas week. Dec. 23: The “high” at MSP was minus 17 degrees. Dec. 24 the metro woke up to a minus 25 degrees air temperature.
Christmas Eve services were canceled statewide. Cars wouldn’t start and churches couldn’t keep sanctuaries warm enough to be safe for elderly parishioners. Plumbing failures were widespread, with frozen pipes statewide. Farmers took shifts staying up all night to break ice in water troughs so livestock could drink. Machinery hydraulics froze up solid, making it impossible to move feed or clear snow.
By comparison what we’re facing the next one to two weeks is “moderately cold,” but not brutal. One to 2 inches of new powder is possible by Saturday morning. No blockbuster snowstorms, but clippers will squeeze out 1 or 2 inches every few days. No more thaws in sight, so whatever snow falls will stick around.
Minnesota cold, but not record-breaking.
