"An entire generation has lived without feeling temperatures 40 and 50 degrees below zero," he said. "And we'll be at 90 to 100 degrees warmer than they are Wednesday morning! How about that!?"
There's cold, and then there's COLD! Extreme and dangerous COLD! is forecast this week from the Northern Plains through the Great Lakes with lows in the -30s and -40s and wind chills as low as the -60s Wed-Thu! If you can't stay cozy inside, be sure to cover any exposed skin! pic.twitter.com/dJNpT0qGHs
— NWS (@NWS) January 28, 2019
Just try telling that to people from the Midwest! We caught up with travelers at San Francisco International Airport where almost half of all flights were delayed or cancelled. Some called Bay Area weather a cakewalk.
"It was so lovely we were wearing t-shirts and shorts. It's 41 degrees and we love it!" said one traveler with a laugh, while toting around luggage and a winter jacket.
The Midwest ❄️ is bracing for a polar plunge. 🥶 (That's my counterpart @JohnGarciaABC7 in Chicago who helped me with my story today.) Because it's unusually mild in the Bay Area, I got sent to a FREEZER! ☃️ Neither of us look amused. #Frozen pic.twitter.com/vFLC82X7nL
— Dion Lim (@DionLimTV) January 29, 2019
My producers thought it would be fun to send me into the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank freezer to get an idea of how cold Midwest weather can be. But even the freezer at just 4 degrees isn't as cold as what our counterparts at our sister station in Chicago are dealing with.
Reporter John Garcia says they're dealing with snow but bracing for record-breaking cold windchill on Wednesday that could hit 50 degrees below zero.
Many Minnesota public schools have already cancelled classes. Teacher Sean Foley's district in Bloomington is on winter weather watch but hasn't made the call to cancel just yet. Temperatures there, are expected to dip to below 30 by Tuesday night and 20 degrees colder than that factoring in wind-chill.
Here it comes! Thanks to 🛰 #GOESEast and #GOES17, we can visually see the #polar air set to bring potentially historic and dangerous cold air over the Upper Midwest this week. The numbers in the loop? Those are wind chills. Why yes, they are low. As low as -81F in fact. 🥶 pic.twitter.com/5U5F6wQTgm
— NWS Grand Forks (@NWSGrandForks) January 28, 2019
"My students were very disappointed we had school today, but we did get some learning done," said Foley with a laugh. The educator says he expects a decision on cancelling school to happen sometime Monday evening.
The National Weather Service tweeted out an image showing their technology predicting some of the most northern spots of the United States reaching minus 81 degree temperatures by the middle of the week.
Watch the latest AccuWeather forecast and take a look at recent weather stories and videos.
