I am not going to sugar coat this. We expect a major cold weather event next week, and I want you, your friends, family, the elderly, and everyone's pets to be prepared as much as possible. Now is the time to be proactive. Best case scenario is this cold will be the worst in 4 to 5 years and sets daily records. Worst case scenario is that we challenge the all time records on both highs and lows. Here is a look at the forecast, ways to prepare, and how this storm will compare with history.
**Forecast** A winter storm will move through the area on Monday. Snow will end Monday night and then the temperature will drop quick. Tuesday will start off around 15 degrees, but temperatures will drop all day. We will be around 0 to -5 by midnight Tuesday night. The temperature will continue to drop going into Wednesday morning. Lows between -10 to -20 are possible. Unfortunately the winds will pick up significantly at the same time. That will drive the wind chill to around -40 early Wednesday morning. Temperatures are expected to stay below 0 all day. Thursday will be very cold as well, but temperatures will slowly moderate by late day. The wind chill is expected to be around -20 to -25 on Thursday. Another wave of cold may keep lows near or below 0 into Friday and possibly even Saturday of next week.
**Ways To Stay Safe** At the worst of this cold on Wednesday morning, frostbite will occur in 10 minutes or less to exposed skin. Keep that in mind going forward. Exposed skin is going to be a big problem later next week. It will be smart to have your car gassed up before the cold gets here and also have basic emergency items in your car such has blankets, cell phone charger, first aid kit, and jumper cables. There are going to be a lot of car batteries that die next week and having a pair of jumper cables could help you or someone else in need. Adding extra insulation to your pipes might be helpful to prevent freezing. Letting your water drip is also very helpful since it is more difficult for moving water to freeze. Check on others including the elderly. Also don't forget about your pets. The cold is dangerous for us, and it will be dangerous for our furry friends as well. This is one forecast I hope we get wrong, but the weather maps are concerning at this point.
**Historic Comparison** While you may have heard weather reports back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s talk about the wind chill between -50 to -70 on occasion it is unheard of today. The wind chill formula was improved drastically more than a decade ago. If you compare all of the arctic outbreaks on today's wind chill scale, you will find we have reached -40 to -45 a few times, but it is rare. The last time it happened was 2014. The time before that was 1994. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Toledo is -20°. We nearly hit that mark in February of 2015 (-19°). We currently have a forecast of -16...so we are close. There have been 14 days in Toledo's history when the high temperature did not reach 0°. The last time it happened was January of 1994. The coldest high temperature ever recorded was -9° on January 20th 1985. We have a forecast at the moment of -3° on Wednesday. Every extreme cold blast is a little different, but based on the data that we have available it appears we have had about 10 arctic blasts of this magnitude since records were started 148 years ago. Some of those occurred in 2014, 1994, 1983, 1982, 1977, 1899, and 1895. There were a handful of events in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s that could also be in this category of cold as well, but we don't have enough information at hand to make that determination.
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