The January–March 2014 North American cold wave was an extreme weather event that extended through the late winter months of the 2013–2014 winter season, and was also part of an unusually cold winter affecting parts of Canada and parts of the north-central and northeastern United States. The event occurred in early 2014 and was caused by a southward shift of the North Polar Vortex. Record-low temperatures also extended well into March.
On January 2, an Arctic cold front initially associated with a nor'easter tracked across Canada and the United States, resulting in heavy snowfall in some areas. Temperatures fell to unprecedented levels, and low temperature records were broken across the some areas of the United States. Business, school, and road closures were common, as well as mass flight cancellations across some airports in the Midwest. Altogether, more than 200 million people were affected, in an area ranging from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean and extending south to include roughly 187 million residents of the Continental United States.
Origins
Beginning on January 2, 2014, sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) led to the breakdown of the semi-permanent feature across the Arctic known as the polar vortex. Without an active upper-level vortex to keep frigid air bottled up across the Arctic, the cold air mass was forced southward as upper-level warming displaced the jet stream. With extensive snow-cover across Canada and Siberia, Arctic air had no trouble remaining extremely cold as it was forced southward into the United States.
According to the UK Met Office, the jet stream dove southward (bringing cold air with it) as a result of unusual contrast between cold air in Canada and mild winter temperatures in the United States. This produced significant wind where the air masses met, leading to bitter wind chills and worsening the impacts of the record cold temperatures.
Initial cold wave: January 3–8, 2014 Record temperatures
United States
On January 5, 2014, Green Bay, Wisconsin was . The previous record low for this day was set in 1979.
On January 6, 2014, Babbitt, Minnesota was the coldest place in the country at .
The low temperature at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago was on January 6. The previous record low for this day was , set in 1884 and tied in 1988. The National Weather Service adopted the Twitter hashtag #Chiberia (a portmanteau of Chicago and Siberia) for the cold wave coverage in Chicago and local media adopted the term as well. In spite of cold temperatures and stiff winds which exceeded the and air temperature when Chicago set its all-time wind chill record of in 1983, Chicago did not break the record because the NWS had adopted a new wind chill formula in 2001.
The average daily temperature for the United States on January 6 was calculated to be . The last time the average for the country was below was January 13, 1997; the 17-year gap was the longest on record.
On January 7, at least 49 record lows for the day were set across the country.Doyle Rice (January 7, 2014), List of record-low temperatures set Tuesday USA Today On the night of January 6–7, Detroit hit a low temperature of breaking the records for both dates. The high temperature of on January 7 was only the sixth day in 140 years of records to have a subzero high.Coldest Arctic Outbreak in Midwest, South Since the 1990s Wrapping Up , weather.com, Jon Erdman and Nick Wiltgen, January 8, 2014 On January 7, 2014, the temperature in Central Park in New York City was . The previous record low for the day was set in 1896, twenty-five years after records began to be collected by the government. Marstons Mills, Massachusetts bottomed out at on the morning of January 8, just one degree above their record low, as did Pittsburgh, which also bottomed out at , setting a new record low on January 6–7. Cleveland also set a record low on those dates at . Temperatures in Atlanta fell to , breaking the old record for January 7 of which was set in 1970. Temperatures fell to at Brasstown Bald, Georgia.Record-setting cold turns deadly Macon Telegraph January 7, 2014 Although the cold air moderated, cold temperatures even reached Florida as far south as Tampa which had a low of on January 7, 2014, 18 F below normal.
The period of December 2013–March 2014 around Illinois was the coldest four-month period on record, with average temperatures in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois around the lower 20s to the upper teens.
Canada The coldest parts of Canada were the eastern prairie provinces, Ontario, Quebec, and the Northwest Territories. However, only southern Ontario set temperature records.
During most of the early cold wave, Winnipeg was the coldest major city in Canada. On January 6, it reached a low of , while on January 7, the low was . On both days, the temperature did not go above . Other parts of southern Manitoba recorded lows of below .Daily Data Report for January 2014 Canada government site On January 5, the daily high in Saskatoon was with a wind chill of −46.
On January 7, 2014, a cold temperature record was set in Hamilton, Ontario: ; London, Ontario was . Toronto dropped below for the first time in 9 years, with a temperature of .
Related extreme weather
Heavy snowfall or rainfall occurred on the leading edge of the weather pattern, which travelled all the way from the American Plains and Canadian prairie provinces to the East Coast. Strong winds prevailed throughout the freeze, making the temperature feel at least ten degrees Fahrenheit colder than it actually was, due to the wind chill factor. In addition to rainfall, snowfall, ice, and blizzard warnings, some places along the Great Lakes were also under wind warnings. Europe also saw the 2013-2014 Atlantic winter storms in Europe which has been linked to the cold winter in North America.
January 2–4, 2014 blizzard
On January 3, Boston had a temperature of with a wind chill, and over of snow. Boxford, Massachusetts recorded . Fort Wayne, Indiana had a record low of . In Michigan, over of snow fell outside Detroit and temperatures around the state were near or below . New Jersey had over of snow, and schools and government offices closed.
January 5–7, 2014 winter storm On January 5, a storm system crossed the Great Lakes region. In Chicago, where to of snow had fallen, O'Hare and Midway Airports cancelled 1200 flights. Freezing rain caused a Delta Air Lines flight to skid off a taxiway and into a snowbank at John F. Kennedy International Airport, with no injuries. The storms associated with the Arctic front caused numerous road closures and flight delays and cancellations. Impacts United States By January 8, 2014, John F. Kennedy International Airport had canceled about 1,100 flights, Newark Liberty International Airport had about 600 canceled flights and LaGuardia Airport had about 750–850 flights canceled.
Snowfall was lighter farther south, with between of snow falling in Tennessee.
In New York City temperatures fell to a record low of on January 7, which broke a 116-year record for daily record low. The cold came after days of unseasonably warm temperatures, with daytime highs dropping by as much as 50 °F (28 °C) overnight, as highs were early on January 6. This made it the most extreme temperature swing in New York City since March 1921. The afternoon high was only . Also on January 7, the day after a record-setting , Chicago recorded . Embarrass, Minnesota had the coldest temperature in the lower 48 states March 2014 with .
Canada In Canada, the front brought rain and snow events to most of Canada on January 5 and 6, which became the second nor'easter in less than a week in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. This weather event ended when the front pushed through, bringing the bitterly cold temperatures with it. Southwestern Ontario experienced a second round of heavy snow in the wake of the front throughout January 6 and 7 and part of January 8 due to lake-effect snow. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut did not experience record-breaking cold, but had a record-breaking blizzard on January 8, when the freeze further south was coming to an end.
Much of Ontario and Quebec were under blizzard warnings. Many highways in Southwestern Ontario were closed by heavy lake-effect snowfall.
Nearly all parts of Canada under the deep freeze experienced steady winds around . In some areas along the north shore of Lake Erie, those winds reached , with gusts as high as . This brought local wind chill levels as low as North America's big freeze seen from space BBC News, January 9, 2014
Several Ontario locations along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Valley experienced cryoseisms or frost quakes.
Mexico Cold air rushing into the Gulf of Mexico behind the front created a Tehuano wind event, with northerly winds from the Bay of Campeche to the Gulf of Tehuantepec in Mexico reaching . Saltillo, in the northeast of the country, registered freezing drizzle and a temperature as low as .
On January 29, Monterrey registered and snow grains with of snowy accumulation.
Impact The extreme cold weather grounded thousands of flights and seriously affected other forms of transport. Many power companies in the affected areas asked their customers to conserve electricity.
United States The weather event played a significant role in the US Economy contributing to a 2.9% drop in GDP. "The bad weather in much of the U.S. in early 2014 was a significant drag on the economy, disrupting production, construction, and shipments, and deterring home and auto sales", wrote PNC Senior Economist Gus Faucher in a note out prior to the release. "But data show growth rebounding in the second quarter, with improvements in home and auto sales and residential construction."
Evan Gold of weather intelligence firm Planalytics called the storm and the low temperatures the worst weather event for the economy since Hurricane Sandy just over a year earlier. 200 million people were affected, and Gold calculated the impact at $5 billion. $50 to $100 million was lost by airlines which cancelled a total of 20,000 flights after the storm began on January 2. JetBlue took a major hit because 80 percent of its flights go through New York City or Boston. Tony Madden of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said with so many schools closed, parents had to stay home from work or work from home. Even the ones who could work from home, Madden said, might not have done as much. Not included in the total were the insurance industry and government costs for salting roads, overtime and repairs.
Gold said some industries benefitted from the storm and cold, including video on demand, restaurants which offered delivery services and convenience stores. People also used gift cards to buy online. Hopper Research of Boston observed that searches for flights to Cancun, Mexico increased by about half in northern cities. New England spot natural gas prices hit record levels from January 1 to February 18, with the day-ahead wholesale (spot) natural gas price at the Algonquin Citygate hub serving Boston averaging US, a record high for these dates since the Intercontinental Exchange data series began in 2001.
Over a dozen deaths were attributed to the cold wave, with dangerous roadway conditions and extreme cold cited as causes.
At least 3,600 flights were cancelled on January 6, and several thousand were cancelled over the preceding weekend. Further delays were caused by the weather at airports that did not possess de-icing equipment. At O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, the jet fuel and deicing fluids froze, according to American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller.