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Baby, it really is cold outside. Especially in Wisconsin's capital city.

Madison is the third-coldest major city in the U.S., according to a ranking assembled by the Weather Channel.

The list considered the 100 most populous cities in the country. It then narrowed down the 20 coldest from that list, using 30-year average temperatures during the months of December, January and February, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. The cities were ranked based on which ones are persistently the coldest — not on record temperatures.

Madison's average temperature during those three winter months is 21.6 degrees, according to the Weather Channel. Its all-time record low came in 1951, when the temperature fell to -37 degrees.

The temperature drops below zero an average of 17 days per year, but it falls below freezing an average of 152 days each year.