We have had a few chilly stretches of weather this winter, but nothing like the coldest temperature ever recorded in Michigan.

You have to go all the way back to February 9th, 1934 to find the coldest temperature on record here in the state of Michigan. It happened in a little village in Otsego County called Vanderbilt. A temperature of -51°F was recorded 11 miles northeast of the town.

There have been unofficial colder temps, but the official coldest temperature in Michigan is the -51° reading -- and that's the actual air temperature, not the wind chill. You can only imagine what the wind could have dropped the temperature down to.

There are only 11 states that have had colder temperatures than Michigan. Those states (in alphabetical order) are Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming,

The only state that has not seen a below zero temperature is Hawaii. Their coldest temperature is 12° at the Mauna Kea Observatory on May 17th, 1979. Even Florida has dropped below zero...getting down to -2°F on February 13th, 1899 in Tallahassee.

The award for the coldest temperature ever recorded goes to...frozen envelope please...the state of Alaska. In Prospect Creek on January 23rd, 1971, the thermometers dropped to -80°. The coldest temperature in the contiguous United States goes to Montana. They dropped to -70° at Rogers Pass on January 20, 1954.

The New York Post put together this video ranking the record cold temperatures for every state...

I need to go turn up the heat...I'm cold now!

 

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