A third surge of cold air pushed into the Northern Plains, Upper Midwest and East Coast. This third surge reinforced the cold temperatures for millions of Americans who have already endured at least a week of January-like chill.

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There have been more than 400 record lows and record cool highs set, covering 43 states, since Sunday. That leaves only five states in the contiguous U.S., all in New England, that have not experienced record cold temperatures this week.

On Wednesday morning record lows were broken or tied from New York to Houston. Thursday morning brought more record cold to parts of the Southeast.

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Long Lasting Cold

At right is a European model forecast loop from last week depicting where the coldest air was expected to be this week.

With blocking high pressure aloft over eastern Alaska and northwest Canada, a direct pipeline of cold air came from Siberia to near the North Pole, then southward into Canada and the U.S., particularly the Plains and Midwest. While not as cold in magnitude, the arctic surges have also swept into parts of the East, though there was a brief mild spell in between the first two cold snaps along the East Coast.

Here is the general timing of each arctic cold surge, and when the coldest air may ease:

- First arctic surge : Spread into the East last week (November 11-15).

- Second arctic surge: Blasted through the East, Midwest, and South through early Thursday (November 16-20). For parts of the mid-Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley and the Middle Atlantic States, this was the coldest of the surges, with numerous daily record lows broken.

- Third arctic surge: Reached the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest Thursday, then slid east across the Great Lakes and parts of the Northeast on Friday. It did not press nearly as far south as the first and second surges did.

- Cold relief: Relief began in the Rockies, then expanded into the southern Plains and Southeast Wednesday and Thursday. Midwest and Northeast relief arrives this weekend.

Highs in the Twin Cities were below freezing from Nov. 10 through Nov. 20, an 11-day stretch. This ties for second longest November subfreezing streak with three other occurrences (see graphic at right). The high on Nov. 17 was only 15 degrees, which is colder than their climatologically coldest average highs in January (23 degrees).

According to the National Weather Service, Chicago tied the record for longest stretch of subfreezing daily high temperatures, with seven days, for the month of November and set a record for consecutive hours below freezing for November with 180 hours.

Other Cold Notables

- Burlington, Colorado, on the eastern Plains near the Kansas border, dipped to -10 Thursday, setting a new record low for the month of November.

- Casper, Wyoming, dipped to -27 at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night, shattering their all-time November record low of -21 on Nov. 23, 1985 (records date to 1939). The temperature stayed at -27 at midnight Thursday, making it the new record low for Nov. 13 as well. Previously, the soonest Casper plunged to -27 was on Dec. 5, 1972. Casper's high of 6 on Nov. 11 was the record earliest single-digit or colder high temperature there. (On Nov. 15, 1955, the high was only -3 degrees). Wednesday, Casper only managed a high of 3 degrees!

- Denver's high of 6 on Nov. 12 was the coldest daily high so early in the season. Only three other November days had daily high temperatures colder in Denver, dating to 1872. Early Thursday morning, Denver chalked up a bone-chilling -14 degrees, easily the coldest temperature so early in the season. (Nov. 17, 1880 was the previous earliest such cold reading in Denver.)

- Livingston, Montana, dipped to minus 21 Wednesday, their coldest so early in the season. That said, they once dipped to minus 31 degrees just one day later in the calendar, on November 13, 1959.

- In the Southern Plains, Amarillo (21), Lubbock (27), Childress (29) and Goodland (14) all set their coldest daily high temperatures on record for so early in the season on Wednesday.

- Riverton, Wyoming had a daytime high of 0 degrees Thursday.

- Redmond, Oregon, dropped to 19 degrees below zero Sunday morning, crushing its all-time record low for the month of November, previously 14 below zero on Nov. 15, 1955. Sunday's low was an astonishing 23 degrees colder than the previous daily record for Nov. 16 in Redmond.

- Kansas City, Missouri set a record cool high of only 23 degrees on Monday, which beat the previous record of 24, which was set back in 1891.

- Joplin, Missouri set a record low for the month of November on Tuesday with a low temperature of 6 degrees.

- Paducah, Kentucky dropped to 10 degrees on Tuesday morning setting a record low and tying the third lowest temperature ever recorded in the month of November. The high temperature on Tuesday only reached 25 degrees, which is only the second time they have had a high that cold so early in the season.

- Valentine, Nebraska had a low of -12 on Tuesday morning, which shattered their previous record of 0.

- Dallas, Texas, saw highs of 45 degrees or colder for six consecutive days, Nov. 12 through Nov. 17. This is the longest such streak on record there in the month of November, besting a five-day streak in November 1937. (That month had a total of seven non-consecutive days with highs 45 or colder; that record still stands, for now.)

- Charlotte, North Carolina recorded a low of 14 degrees on Wednesday morning making it the coldest on record so early in the season.

- Charleston, West Virginia set a record low of 12 degrees on Wednesday, which made it the coldest on record for so early in the season.

- Macon, Georgia, plummeted to 17 degrees on Wednesday morning. Macon has never recorded a low in the teens or colder so early in the season since records began in 1892; in fact, the only other time they've seen teens in meteorological autumn (Sept. 1 to Nov. 30) was on Nov. 24-25, 1950, with lows of 19 and 10 degrees, respectively.

- Jacksonville, Florida dropped down to 24 degrees on Thursday morning, making it the coldest on record so early in the season. It is their third-coldest November reading on record, behind 23 degrees on Nov. 25, 1950, and 21 degrees exactly 20 years later on Nov. 25, 1970.

- South Bend, Indiana recorded eight consecutive days at or below freezing on Thursday, making it the longest streak on record for the month of November. The previous longest streaks were five days.

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