Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — Thayer, Nebraska

2024-01-11 to 2024-01-20 · Thayer, Nebraska

Event narrative

The Hebron Airport AWOS recorded wind chills of -31 at 10:15 AM on January 13th and -28 at 9:15 AM on January 14th.

Wider weather episode

Mid-January 2024 struck South Central Nebraska with a fierce onslaught of bitterly cold temperatures/wind chills along with several rounds of snow, although temperature-wise, this cold air outbreak was ultimately just a bump in the road during an otherwise very mild meteorological winter season (December 2023-February 2024). In terms of basic, overall average/mean temperature, the 10-day stretch from January 11th-20th marked the overall-coldest 10 days across the area in nearly three years...since the February 2021 Arctic outbreak. However, when digging deeper and examining metrics such as consecutive-hour streaks of exceeding particular temperature/wind chill thresholds, portions of this cold snap actually featured some of the most extreme conditions endured in three to four decades! The entire 24-county area was under at least a Wind Chill Advisory for the majority of these 10 days, with the overall-worst wind chills focused during a Wind Chill Warning that ran from 6 PM on the 12th through 12 PM on the 16th (see below for more specific wind chill info).

Delving into various facts highlighting the significance of this cold stretch, and starting with actual temperatures, the following statistics are from ASOS observations at Central Nebraska Regional Airport in Grand Island (GRI), where conditions were reasonably representative of South Central Nebraska as a whole. First off, the 10-day, overall-average temperature from the 11th-20th was 1.1 F (average daily high temperature 9.5 /average daily low -7.4). This was the coldest 10-day stretch since Feb. 7-16, 2021 (which averaged -4.7). Furthermore, these 10 days averaged an incredible 24.6 F below normal, with daily departures ranging anywhere from 12-36 F below normal. Six of the 10 days featured high temperatures under 10 F (as cold as -3 on the 14th), and seven of the 10 days registered sub-zero lows (as cold as -17 on the 14th). The overall-coldest days were the 12th-15th and the 19th-20th, as the 17th-18th actually snuck in a brief warm-up with high temperatures into the 20s across most of the area (albeit still several degrees below normal). Turning to hourly temperature data from the Grand Island ASOS, it registered TEMPERATURES AT-OR-BELOW ZERO FOR AN INCREDIBLE 90-STRAIGHT HOURS between the evening of the 12th and the late morning of the 16th...the longest streak in 40 winters (since a 202-hour run in Dec. 1983)! Looking beyond Grand Island to other South Central Nebraska NWS Cooperative Observer sites and airport sensors, some of the very coldest readings reported during this stretch were -21 at Red Cloud and Greeley, and -20 in/near Central City, York and Genoa. As for wind chill values, the most brutal conditions of the 10-day period occurred on the 13th-14th, when dozens of automated stations spent multiple hours at least -25 to -45 F. A few of the most extreme wind chills measured by ASOS/AWOS/Nebraska Mesonet stations included -46 at Ord airport, -43 at Aurora airport, -42 near Gothenburg and -41 at Hastings airport along with near Alda and Central City. On the morning of the 14th, these unrelenting wind chills were mainly driven by very cold temperatures between -10 and -20 degrees in the presence of modest winds mainly under 15 MPH. However. on the 13th stronger winds were a bigger factor in the outdoor misery, with sustained speeds commonly 20-30 MPH/gusts up to around 40 MPH. Looking at hourly wind chill data from the Grand Island ASOS, not only were there 47-straight hours of Advisory-criteria wind chills at -20 F or colder (longest streak in 33 winters...since 58 hours in Dec. 1990), but there were also 31-CONSECUTIVE HOURS OF WARNING-CRITERIA WIND CHILLS OF -30-OR-COLDER (longest stretch in 34 winters...since 37 hours in Dec. 1989)!

Despite its significance, this 10-day run of extreme cold actually ended up being a notable anomaly in an otherwise very mild meteorological winter. In fact, at the Grand Island ASOS (GRI), meteorological winter as a whole (Dec. 2023-Feb. 2024) actually averaged 3.6 F ABOVE normal...marking the 7th-warmest winter on record out of 129. However, because the 10-day, Jan. 11th-20th stretch was so severely frigid, it actually dragged down the seasonal average by a pronounced margin. In fact, had Jan. 11th-20th simply featured exactly normal temps, the entire three-month season would have averaged around 2.6 F warmer than it did! In the immediate aftermath of this harsh 10-day stretch, temperatures abruptly righted themselves, as each of the final 11 days of January featured near-to-well-above-normal high temperatures ranging from 31-62 F...as the 21st-31st as a whole averaged more than 7 F ABOVE normal. To be sure, the harshly cold temperatures were not the only weather story across South Central Nebraska in mid-January, as most areas also picked up cumulative snowfall of at least 7-16 inches between the 8th-18th (highest along/east of Highway 281), with at-times strong winds also promoting significant blowing/drifting snow. In fact, the NWS Cooperative Observer in Osceola accumulated 18.5 over that 11-day span, marking the snowiest 11-day period there in over 50 years...since Dec. 1973! Please refer to separate episode/event narratives for more specific details regarding Jan. 2024 snow events. As for the bitter cold itself though, it did carry its own impacts, including contributing to a water pipe burst at the Central Community College campus in Hastings that flooded the basement of the Phelps Building.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1151249. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.