Cold/Wind Chill — Wabasha, Minnesota

2024-01-15 · Wabasha, Minnesota

Event narrative

An automated weather observation station reported a wind chill of 29 degrees below zero in Lake City.

Wider weather episode

A multi-faceted winter storm event through the middle of January ushered in an arctic airmass with bitter cold into Martin Luther King Junior Day. A 20 to 30 degree drop in minimum temperatures from January 13th through January 14th brought minimum temperatures of 10 to 25 degrees below zero across southeast Minnesota. These bitterly cold temperatures lingered into the morning of Martin Luther King Junior Day on January 15th. While sustained winds largely remained calm, occasional gusts pushing 10 to 20 mph at times resulted in wind chills of 25 to 40 degrees below zero. Minimum wind chill reports were -39 degrees in Byron (Dodge County), Rochester (Olmsted County), and Stewartville (Olmsted County).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1158192. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.