Any place in Alaska is associated with cold weather, but temperatures have gotten even colder across Canada and parts of the U.S. this winter. The freezing weather comes south to Anchorage, grips most of Canada, and has once again moved into the Midwest, with subzero temperatures across North Dakota, northern Minnesota, and eastern Montana. In Minneapolis, temperatures reached -8° Fahrenheit on Sunday (Feb. 4), just seven degrees from the day’s record cold temperature of -15° achieved in 2004.
Despite mild temperatures in California and along parts of the Pacific Coast, temperatures get progressively colder as one goes north. It’s about 70° in Los Angeles but only 46° in Vancouver. North of Vancouver, however, temperatures get extremely cold. Anchorage, Alaska, reached -7°F on February 2, 2018, breaking the previous record lows for that day.
Another record temperature for the day was broken on February 3, with temperatures getting down to -6°F.
And today in Anchorage (Feb. 4), things have gotten even colder. It has currently gotten as cold as -8°F, breaking the previous low temperature for the day by eight degrees – the old record low temperature was zero degrees, which was reached in 2015. The average low temperature in Anchorage is 12°F, and it reached 39°F in 2016. 39°F is forty-seven degrees warmer than the low temperature experienced today. And for the record, it is forecast to reach a low of 6°F today despite having been more than ten degrees colder than that already.
Yet some warm temperatures along the Gulf of Mexico are supposedly enough to prove global warming, despite more cold weather across China and the usual cold in northern Europe and parts of Russia. And the cold weather in the northeast is predicted to move into the Western states towards the end of winter.
Yes, it seems like the groundhog’s prediction was right this year.