Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — Lancaster, Nebraska

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

Event narrative

Wind chills across the county dropped under 35 degrees below zero every night during the duration of this event. The coldest wind chills were felt on January 13th and 14th. The coldest recorded wind chill in the county was minus 40 degrees, observed in Hallam on the evening of the 13th and again in Firth on the morning of the 14th. A newspaper article reported 12 admissions into the CHI Health St. Elizabeth Regional Burn and Wound Center in Lincoln due to severe frostbite, and an additional 12 admissions to hospitals across the Omaha metro due to severe frostbite.

Wider weather episode

On the evening of January 12th, an arctic cold front associated with a powerful winter storm pushed south across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Behind this front, a strong cold-core high pressure system moved into the central and northern Plains. This ushered in a prolonged period of well below average temperatures characterized by extremely cold wind chills that lasted through the morning of January 17th.

In advance of this cold air outbreak, long-fuse wind chill warnings were issued for the entire county warning area. Daytime high temperatures struggled to climb above zero degrees with wind chills remaining below minus 20 for the duration of the event. The coldest wind chills were observed region-wide on the night of January 13th into the morning of January 14th. Wind chills below minus 40 degrees were widespread with a few locations recording wind chills as low as minus 50 degrees. Strong winds that contributed to these extremely low wind chills also caused areas of blowing and drifting snow to persist one to three days after the winter storm that marked the start of this extreme cold event. Continued blowing and drifting of snow kept many county roads across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa closed for days after snow had stopped falling.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1158865. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.