WATERLOO REGION - It was record cold Tuesday morning at the Waterloo Region International Airport, but look for a warmup by the weekend.

At 8 a.m., the temperature was unofficially -24 C at the automated airport weather station. The exact record low and time will be confirmed when minute-by-minute weather data is available in the early afternoon.

The previous coldest Jan. 13 temperature was -23.3 C, set in 1918 and matched in 2004.

The cold won't last, said Geoff Coulson, a meteorologist at Environment Canada.

"It's turning into a tale of two Januarys," he said.

The month started with below-normal cold and a massive lake effect snow in some areas of Ontario.

By the weekend, temperatures around freezing are expected to arrive and stick around for the rest of the month.

"The second half (of January) is actually setting up to be generally milder than normal," Coulson said.

Normal mid-January temperatures for the Kitchener area are highs of -3 C and lows of -11 C.

By Saturday, a daytime high of zero is expected with overnight lows of -4 C. Sunday, there's a chance of snow, then more around-freezing temperatures through next week, the Weather Network forecasts.

As of Jan. 11, 20 centimetres of snow was recorded at the Breslau airport. That's on track for normal: 44 cm is usual in January for Kitchener, Coulson said.

In cottage country around Bracebridge, 123 cm of lake effect snow has fallen as cold winds blew across Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

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