COLDER: Iron Range residents don't break their stride in the cold by LEE BLOOMQUIST Duluth News-Tribune Staff Writer January 29, 2004 Global Warming Will Not Make Us Warm In Our Latitudes...

It was so cold in Embarrass (35 miles north of Duluth) Thursday morning that it almost felt like the good old days. National Weather Service observer Roland Fowler recorded a temperature of 43 below zero at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday morning's temperatures were among the lowest in the Northland since Minnesota's record of 60 below zero in Tower on Feb. 2, 1996. Thursday's official low temperature at the Duluth International Airport -- 30 below zero -- was the coldest since it hit 39 below zero on Dec. 26, 1996, more than seven years ago. The record cold in Duluth was 41 below zero set on Jan. 2, 1885. Fowler estimated the wind chill in Embarrass at 70 below. And it's forecast to be nearly that cold again this morning, with even colder wind chills. "People here are just commenting on how cold it is," Fowler said in the midst of a hot cup of coffee at the Four Corners restaurant in Embarrass. "It reminds me of back in the 1980s, when I was working at Reserve (Mining Co.), when it was this cold." In nearby Tower, National Weather Service observer Kathy Hoppa recorded a temperature of 40 below zero at 7 a.m. "This is more like it," Hoppa said. "You go outside and you just feel it -- it's penetrating." Cook, however, set the low mark with 47 below zero, said Kurt Mayer, National Weather Service forecaster in Duluth. Valerie Ohotto, owner of the Montana Cafe in downtown Cook, said she was skeptical about dropping that low. "Most people are saying that they had 32 to 40 below," she said. "There's really no buzz going on about the weather. People are just sitting here and talking politics as normal," although they left their cars running out on the street. The weather observation stations at Fowler's home in Embarrass and Hoppa's rural Tower home have a long history of recording frigid weather. On Feb. 2, 1996, the temperature at Tower plummeted to a state record 60 below zero, breaking a 93-year-old record of 59 below. On the same day, two of Fowler's National Weather Service thermometers malfunctioned at about 3 a.m. It was 53 below and so cold that the alcohol in one of the thermometers separated. Temperatures across portions of Northeastern Minnesota were generally about 30 to 35 below zero Thursday morning, with some cooler exceptions, according to the National Weather Service in Duluth. Official temperatures were 29 below in Hibbing, 33 below at Babbitt, 35 below in International Falls and Littlefork, and 31 below in Snowbank, east of Ely. At Phillips Chevrolet-Oldsmobile in Cook, employees kept the dealership's wrecker running continuously to respond to telephone calls for jump-starts. However, Larry Phillips, owner of the dealership, said he had only 33 below at his home near Cook. "Maybe someone from Embarrass moved here," Phillips said of the reported 47 below in Cook. Wreckers and private cars weren't the only vehicles left running Thursday morning. Hibbing Police Department Capt. Alan Nickila said he instructed his day shift crew to leave motors on police squads running. "I want our cars to be able to respond to an emergency," Nickila said. "If we shut them off for some reason and then they stay off for a while, it wouldn't take long before they would freeze up." Chisholm Police learned that lesson the hard way. A squad car that had been running roughly, possibly because of snow that had blown in beneath the hood, was left outside the Police Department overnight with some of its power accessories still activated. On Thursday morning, the squad car was frozen solid and needed to be towed to a garage for repair. Despite the cold, the Thursday morning temperatures in Embarrass and Tower were not lows for the season. Last week, Embarrass recorded 44 below and Tower 41 below. "This is really the typical January," Hoppa said. Below-normal temperatures are expected to continue through next week or perhaps beyond, Mayer said. "I don't see anything in the way of a warm-up until Valentine's Day," Mayer said. "But usually after a cold spell like this, we break out of it with a vengeance. We will warm up."