PARK RAPIDS, Minn. — A cold snap brought frigid temperatures across the Upper Midwest and one rural area in Hubbard County, Minn., was colder than anywhere else in all 50 states.
Badoura Township, 15 miles east of Park Rapids, Minn., dropped down to minus 31 degrees early Wednesday morning, Dec. 11 — the coldest recorded temperature in the United States for the day, according to WDAY Chief Meteorologist John Wheeler.
Fairbanks, Ala., was warmer than Badoura Township with a toasty 8 degrees above zero, warm for the city which usually averages about 10 below this time of year.
Badoura Township resident Jay Johnson said Wednesday's frigid cold is not unusual for the area, and that people there are used to it.
"You kind of know what you're going to expect and you just go out," he said in a FaceTime interview from his home. "You have to — gotta feed the birds and dogs so you gotta go out."
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Johnson said 31 below zero is nothing compared to what the area experienced in 2018, when he says the mercury dropped to minus 60.
"You can't even get the house warm," he explained. "Everything gets cold; you go outside, you do your stuff, you go back inside, you don't even think about getting in a car."
The coldest temperature ever recorded in the United States was in Prospect Creek, Ala., nearly 50 years ago when the temperature reached 80 degrees below zero on Jan. 23, 1971.
The coldest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. was at Rogers Pass, Mont., on Jan. 20, 1954, when the thermometer read minus 70 degrees.
