Iowa “Frozen,” in 3-D
While Disney’s “Frozen” was showing at the Sierra Community Theatre, Iowa and the entire Midwest was exactly that… frozen!
Bitter cold early in the week closed Greene County and Paton-Churdan schools on Monday and caused a two-hour delay Tuesday, but there were no serious impacts from the cold reported in Greene County.
The National Weather Service reported a low temperature of -12 degrees and wind chills as low as -39 in Des Moines on Monday. In Jefferson, KCCI’s SchoolNet recorded a low temperature of -15 and a high temperature of -2. Wind chills in Jefferson unofficially were as low as -45 degrees. The severe cold weather was the result of a “polar vortex,” or strong winds circulating around the North Pole bringing cold air south, meteorologists said.
Despite that, Greene County Medical Center reported no cases of frost bite in the emergency room. The only weather-related ER visit was a patient who fell on ice.
Although many area residents presumably used space heaters to supplement their furnaces, there were no reported structure fires in the county.
Business at Don’s Ace Hardware and Bomgaars in Jefferson was brisk as residents prepared for the coldest weather since 1996. Ace Hardware owner Andy Harland reported that space heaters, heat lamps, heat tapes for water pipes, weather stripping for windows, expanding foam sealant and extension cords were popular items Friday and Saturday, but that the store did not sell out of anything. “It’s not normal to be this cold. It hasn’t been like this since 1996. If this is your first winter in a house with this kind of cold, how would you know what you might run into?” Harland said Monday.
Chris Higgins and Maggie Runyan, supervisors at Bomgaars, reported selling a lot of insulated clothing as farmers prepared for outdoor chores. Sale of non-floating stock tank heaters was brisk, as chopping ice isn’t necessary to add the heater; as ice thaws, the heater sinks to the bottom of the tank. The only item the store sold out was bulbs for heat lamps; more were expected on Tuesday.
There were unofficial reports of young piglet fatalities in the cold, but ISU Extension and Outreach beef field specialist Chris Clark had no reports of Greene County farmers losing livestock. “There were the headaches and stress of outdoor chores and frozen waterers, but that was it,” he said. Clark explained that generally speaking, cattle are outdoor animals, and that if there is a windbreak available, or if hilly or wooded areas are available for them to find shelter from the wind, they are all right. He said that producers were providing more feed to cattle to sustain them in the cold, but that it would take extended cold weather for that to have an impact on cattle prices.
The National Weather Service’s archives help put the cold weather in perspective. On Jan. 7, 1873, a severe blizzard claimed many lives in northern Iowa. The blizzard arrived very quickly and caught many travelers who had ventured out on what started as a sunny day. There were likely more than 100 fatalities in the storm, many of whom were found close to their homes or other buildings but could not see them in blinding snow. Some bodies were not found until spring.
Also from the NWS archives, on Jan. 8, 2003, the temperature in Des Moines was 67 degrees, the highest temperature recorded for that date.
