It's been a record-breaking few days in terms of winter weather. A 120-year-old record low was smashed in Washington, DC, this morning where the temperature plunged to 5 degrees, a temp not seen since 1996. The previous record low for Feb. 20, set in 1896, was 8 degrees, the Washington Post reports. "Only 1885 has featured as many super-cold high temperatures as we’ve seen this year during mid-February through the end of the season," the paper notes. Cities from Michigan to Florida also experienced record lows, while Anchorage was 10 degrees warmer than Atlanta's 15 degrees, USA Today reports. More record-setting temperatures:
- At 15 degrees yesterday, Virginia's Washington Dulles Airport recorded its coldest high for a date this late in winter since the airport opened in 1962. Baltimore-Washington International Airport recorded an 18-degree high; only a day in the 1870s was colder this late in the season. BWI's low of 1 broke a record low of 4 set in 1979.
- The temperature at Chicago's O'Hare airport fell to 8 below zero yesterday, breaking a 79-year-old record to take the title of the coldest Feb. 19, the Chicago Tribune reports. A high of 4 snagged the coldest high for the date, ahead of a 9-degree high in 1936.
- In Florida, Fort Myers broke a 1960 record and Punta Gorda fell to a record low of 30. Tampa and Miami each saw the coldest Feb. 20 on record, at 36 degrees and 37 degrees, respectively, reports the News Press.
The National Weather Service expects temperatures to hover around the teens from Illinois to western Virginia today, while temperatures in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic could fall to numbers last recorded in the mid-1990s,
USA Today reports. Meanwhile,
AccuWeather predicts that a weekend storm will hit Central and Eastern states and perhaps lead to more roof collapses in New England and New York. (More
winter weather stories.)
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