Regardless of where you're from, minus 50 degrees is well below the lowest temperature many of us will ever experience (or want to experience).
In fact, minus 30 degrees would set records for most of the U.S. -- but not for Alaska.
Temperatures in the town of Chicken, about 350 miles from Fairbanks, plummeted into the negative 50s for three straight days this week. The lowest the city reached was a frigid minus 56 degrees Monday, with the high only topping out at minus 34 degrees.
Imagine waking up to this thermometer:
Photo from Chase Tingle in Two Rivers, Alaska: "When do we have to start worrying about White Walkers?" #akwx #fairbanks #alaska pic.twitter.com/ZOw2UxRf1k
— Fairbanks News-Miner (@newsminer) January 7, 2019
Brace yourself for what we’re going to tell you next: That minus 56 degrees is not even a record-breaker in the town of Chicken. The Weather Channel reported for this timeframe, temperatures would have had to bottom out from minus 63 to minus 70 degrees to break records.
As you can probably imagine, their wind chills are intense.
The National Weather Service issues wind chill advisories for the area when wind chills are low enough to lead to frostbite on exposed skin outdoors. In rare cases even, wind chill warnings are raised when the air and winds could lead to frostbite or hypothermia within a matter of minutes.
While the town of Chicken sees these types of temperatures several times a year, that’s not necessarily the case for all of Alaska. Fairbanks hasn’t plunged to minus 40 degrees in nearly two years.
Still, I think those of us south of Alaska may prefer to stay right where we are.