The Arctic Roundup

Here we go with a long list of bitter cold low temperatures, not only in Alabama, but in other places of interest. We will probably update this one more time by 11:00 a.m. to include a lot of the North Alabama lows that are not available yet from official stations.

ALABAMA (Final update at 10:50 a.m. to add late reports)
5 Grantley, Broomtown
6 Hamilton
7 Scrougeout, Cottondale
8 Hytop, Russellville Airport, McCalla, Pinson, Ashby, Concord/Hueytown, Lincoln
9 Crossville, 9 miles north of Fayette, Munford, Dearmandville, Vigo, Marion (Thanks to Saundra Ingram for the Marion report. She is a long-time reader of our material and one of the best persons I know to care for pets.)
10 Bankhead National Forest, Winfield, Cedar Bluff, Gaylesville, Eastaboga
11 Hazel Green West, Holly Pond, Ft. Payne, Meridianville, Cullman, Coker, East Cullman, Roebuck, Childersburg/Talladega
12 Courtland, Crossville, Valley Head Water Department, Anniston, Decatur, Muscle Shoals, Jasper, Pleasant Grove, Center Point, Alabaster/Navajo Pines, Pelham, Cuba, Lake Tuscaloosa/Northport, Wadley, Aliceville
13 Huntsville/UAH, Scottsboro Airport, Oxford, Shelby County Airport, Troy, Tuscaloosa, Northport, Noccalula Falls, Gardendale/Mt. Olive, Blue Pond, Oxford, Roanoke
14 Birmingham, Evergreen, Huntsville, Montgomery, Bankhead National Forest, NE Huntsville, East Trussville (Jay Shelley, retired NWS), Bessemer, Cordova
15 Mobile, Clay/Deerfoot, Clay/Pinson (Womack Road)
16 Ft. Payne Airport, Guntersville, Oxford
17 Selma, Springville/Simmons Mountain
18 Auburn, Mobile/Brookley Field, Dothan, Albertville
19 Springville

USA TEMPERATURE EXTREMES
81 Sunday at Santee, California
17 below this morning at Kremmling, Colorado
47 below at Eagle, Alaska
30 below at good ole Deadhorse with a wind chill of 56 below

SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS
4 atop Mt. LeConte with 20 inches of snow on the ground
6 Cades Cove with 1 inch of snow
11 Newfound Gap with 7 inches of snow
6 Gatlinburg with 1 inch of snow
5 below on Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina, 18 inches of snow
8 Jefferson, North Carolina, 4 inches of snow

USA SNOW SURVEY
59% of the lower 48 with a blanket of snow this morning.
Adding all of the numbers of reports there is an average depth of 6 inches. A few of the heavier amounts:
289 inches Alpine Meadow, California
202 inches Squaw Flat, Idaho
193 inches Waterhole, Washington
110 inches Cowboy Village, Wyoming
(Remember, those real deep reports are from the high country of the west where they have an entire network of automated snow gauges called Snotel.)

OTHER LOW TEMPERATURES THIS MORNING
21 New Orleans
14 Nashville
36 Miami Beach (that is no typo)
29 Orlando
18 Atlanta
48 100 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico
62 below zero at Ojmjakon, Siberia
15 Marshalltown, Iowa
2 International Falls, Minnesota
30 Daytona Beach and Melbourne
26 Orlando (Sanford Airport0

The temperature reports from Iowa indicate that the worst of the bitter cold may be easing. There was 20 inches of snow on the ground at Duluth and 14 inches at Des Moines. Even across Cuba, the temperature this morning was in the low to mid 50s with brisk northerly winds.

A STRANGE OCCURRENCE
This interesting e-mail this morning from Marcus Toups, stationed offshore in the Gulf of Mexico at the Chevron Main Pass. That is about 30 miles east of Venice, Louisiana. Quoting Mr. Toups exactly:
“Saturday morning it was really cloudy and cold and the seas were rough. In between the waves, there was what looked like fog or spray and we counted about 20 funnel clouds and waterspouts forming and rapidly disipating. I figure this was due to much warmer water temperatures. Anyway, it was really strange.”

MY COMMENT
This proves once again that the weather is always interesting and often very mysterious. Saturday morning, when I took Little Miss Molly for a walk, microscopic snowflakes were falling with no clouds overhead. The flakes were not larger than a small pencil eraser. I wondered if it was floating ice crystals like they have in the far north country when it is so cold that it squeezes out the last available moisture into ice crystals. Anybody else see that Saturday morning?

FINAL NOTES
The 33/40 Skywatcher at Scrougeout in NE Etowah County reports only 7 hours of temperature above freezing so far in January. A volunteer observer in Huntsville reported only a brief visit to the 33-degree mark so far this month. That is almost unheard of in Alabama.

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