5 days Ago By Jesse Ritka
FARGO — We are coming out of a brief cold snap but this winter, so far, hasn't even come close to record cold. So far this winter we have had fewer than 10 days below 10 degrees, and Fargo hasn’t even had a day where temperatures stayed below zero all day. ADVERTISEMENT But January is the coldest month on average in our region with high and lows combined for an average temperature around 9 in Fargo and 7 degrees in Grand Forks so cold snaps are not just common but should be expected this month.
But bitter blasts are not as severe as they were in the 1880s: today is the anniversary of the coldest temperature recorded in the F-M area. On January 8, 1887 the mercury dropped down to -48. This temperature was taken by Signal Corps observers for the Weather Bureau, the National Weather Service’s predecessor, at the Merchants State Bank in Moorhead, MN.
In the 1880s, observers recorded the temperature using a mercury thermometer inside a wooden box called a Stevenson screen. Although we’ve swapped out the mercury and alcohol thermometers for digital ones, Stevenson screens are still used around the world today to protect temperature sensors from direct sunlight, precipitation and to allow air circulation around the sensor, resulting in a more accurate reading, though at the time roofs were not required on these instrument boxes. Fargo’s only recorded four years with lows in the -40s - all of which were in the 1800s.
.. and all but one of those days landed in January.
The closest we’ve come to that kind of cold in the last 100 years was Feb. 1st, 1996 with a low of -39. North Dakota's coldest temperature recorded was in February when Parshall hit -60 one day after Valentine's Day.
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