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Cold Once Again Plunges into New, Old Mexico

Feb 3, 2011; 1:23 PM ET

FRIDAY UPDATE: Here is some additional information and videos showing the snow in Monterrey, Mexico. Because weather records are hard to come by in that country, it's hard to say how rare it is, but Jim Andrews has more information on the specific temperatures reached in this news story and weather blogger Wendell Malone has additional info on his page, as does Mark Vogan.

Stateside, Ruiodoso, NM had a HIGH of -4 F yesterday (instead of their normal +51). Their departure for the day was -45! Also found out that their station is incorrectly displayed in Mexico on the map I posted below; I have x'd it out here:

Wolf Point, New Mexico tied their all-time record low temperature of -40 on Wednesday. In the first three days of this month according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (where I used to work, BTW):

- Over 500 stations have set new record low afternoon temperatures
- Over 80 stations had never experienced a colder February afternoon
- Almost 30 stations had never experienced a colder afternoon period

- About 175 stations set record morning lows
- Around 15 of those were the coldest February mornings on record
- 4 stations set all-time record low temperatures

ORIGINAL POST THURSDAY: Frigid air has once again pushed south from Texas and New Mexico into the country of Mexico (as it did last month). However this time it's truly Arctic air -- low temperatures in southern New Mexico were recorded as low as -31 F this morning from an unofficial station. Officially, it was as cold as -26 in the northern part of the state and -17 in the south. As we pointed out in this companion story, RealFeel temperatures are below zero from Canada to Mexico, and the chill has caused Texas to start doing rolling blackouts, like California does at the heat of Summer. Temperatures this morning are shown below.

Believe it or not, that's nowhere near the state record of -50, but seven stations in Texas and NM set new February record low temperatures (as of yesterday). According to our internal climate database, Alamogordo, NM should have started the day off around the freezing mark but found themselves freezing at -6 F. Their normal high would be 58 but they struggled to get to 14! This created a -40 temperature departure for the day, which is so rare I'm not sure I've ever seen it.

South of the border, Saltillo, Mexico saw their temperatures Tuesday (35/72) cut in half yesterday (19/36). And in Monterrey, AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan Arturo S. noted "First square at Alameda Park in Downtown Monterrey, Mexico is REALLY frozen. Heavy ice on the trees. Snow and sleet starting downtown..." Shelters were opened and schools were closed according to this news article (en Espanol). Heavy icicles were shown in the town square (I think this is because of a fountain or water irrigation, I'm not sure). That article quoted the metro low temperature of -5 C (23 F). Wind chills fell to -20 C and the concept had to be explained to the locals, who had not witnessed it before. Additional snow and ice photos are available here and they also have a video.

We'll know more about the extent of the cold air tomorrow, when today's officially recorded temperatures come in. Meanwhile here is a more detailed plot map of the mexico map shown above. These are readings at 12Z time this morning (no I don't believe the 33 at Isla Perez).

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

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