More than 100 million people woke up Wednesday to frost advisories, freezing watches and warnings on what was expected to be the coldest morning of the week for the south and the coldest temperatures for most since spring.
Because the cold air mass plunged south before expanding east, southern cities actually woke up colder than northern cities. Dallas was colder than Boston and Atlanta was colder than Cleveland.
Registered for the first time, Birmingham, Alabama, reached 32 degrees ahead of Billings, Montanabeating that notoriously cold city to the first official freeze of the season.
Central Park in New York City dropped to 42 degrees, the coldest temperature since April 29and Charlotte’s 30-degree reading set the fifth earliest freeze on record.
Most cold warnings expire mid-morning Wednesday, but some linger until Thursday morning, especially in the Ohio Valley, Gulf Coast and Southeast Coast.
Thanks to temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees below average, about 50 depth records were predicted on Wednesday morning. Wednesday’s high temperatures are also expected to remain below average, leading to a chilly afternoon that feels more like November than mid-October.
This cold air mass was also responsible for the first snow of the season in the Great Lakes and Midwest. Early season snow was also record-breaking for many locations.
There was 18 inches in Marquette, Michigan, shattering the record for the highest two-day snowfall in the month of October. In October there is an average of just over 5 centimeters of snow in the city.
The snow that fell in Madison, Wisconsin this week was the first snow in more than 30 years. The city’s average first measurable snowfall is November 11.
While it’s not a record, you add Chicago to the list of places that recorded the season’s first measurable snow this week.
This cold snap will be short-lived, with temperatures expected to recover from Friday and continue into next week. That means back to the 80s for highs across Texas, with afternoons rising into the 1970s for mid-Atlantic cities like Washington.