Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — Dakota, Nebraska

2024-01-12 to 2024-01-16 · Dakota, Nebraska

Event narrative

Wind chills remained -35 degrees or colder at times over a nearly four-day period, with a minimum wind chill of -45 degrees at South Sioux City during the early overnight of January 14.

Wider weather episode

A multi-faceted winter system impacted much of the area from the afternoon hours of January 11 through early on January 16.

Initial wintry impacts resulted from snowfall which developed and wrapped northward through areas along and south of I-90 during the afternoon and early evening of the 11th and ended during the afternoon on the 12th. Periods of very low visibility in moderate to briefly heavy snow occurred mainly south of U.S. Highway 18 during the morning and early afternoon of the 12th, but winds remained below blizzard thresholds. As a result, snow accumulations generally varied from a trace to light dusting north of I-90, up to an inch or two along I-90, and up to 3 to 8 inches south of U.S. Highway 18.

As the snow tapered off on the 12th, northwest winds increased to a gusty 35 to 55 mph, which ushered in a period of blowing snow and bitterly cold wind chills. Where greater accumulating snow occurred on the 11th and 12th, winds produced significant ground blizzard conditions through much of the day on the 13th as winds generally peaked. Roads were either closed or travel not advised across northeast Nebraska and northwest Iowa, as well as areas of southeast South Dakota near and south of I-90 from the 13th into the 14th. Winds diminished some over the following couple of days, but as temperatures fell into the teens to around 20 below zero and remained below zero for up to 72 to 84 hours, wind chill values reached 40 below to 60 below zero at times. The coldest values occurred during the period of stronger winds on the 13th to early on the 14th.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1156796. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.