![]() ![]() This is due to a significant lobe of the polar vortex stretching south over that region, bringing. With wind energy generation at all-time highs, customers were protected from some of the price spikes that they could have seen per the law of supply and demand. Mount Washington set a record for coldest wind chill ever recorded at minus 108 degrees. In Michigan, where natural gas was unable to match the pace of such sudden usage spikes, two utilities and the state’s governor called on consumers to leave their thermostats in the mid-sixties to ease the burden on the grid.Īs some natural gas plants shut off due to the risk of freezing, Hoopeston and other wind facilities across the Midwest picked up some of the slack. The wind facility, which feeds the Chicago area through the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) market, helped keep the city’s electric heat strong and steady at a time when Chicago was facing temperatures lower than it had seen in 30 years.Īcross the Midwest, homes and businesses cranked up their thermostats, straining the grid and causing power prices to start creeping up. A polar vortex is a low pressure area and pool of cold air that is present over the poles throughout the year. Washington: Nearly 90 million people will experience temperatures at or below minus 17 degrees Celsius this week, from the. That all changed this past weekend when the coldest air in 13 months moved in. Polar vortex descends on US with dangerous, extremely rare wind chills. To say that January has been a tumultuous month weather-wise would be an understatement. Weve been relatively quiet when it comes to snow and really cold temperatures. weather rollercoaster, the polar vortex is the next wildcard. While it usually sits over the Arctic, the. This chart shows the load demand in MISO during the polar vortex (blue) compared to how much power the region’s wind farms were generating. Winter woke up across much of the Midwest including here in Central Indiana. The polar vortex sliding south into the Midwest is sending temperatures to their lowest levels in more than 30 years and, in some cases, setting records. Hoopeston Wind ran night and day at nearly full capacity, with only one turbine out of nearly fifty tripping offline because of the plunging mercury. At the Hoopeston Wind facility, it was business as usual through the polar vortex-except for one thing.Īs much of the Midwest was shutting down during the very coldest parts of the vortex, the wind farm’s production was off the charts. Postal Service halted mail delivery across parts of ten states.īut for Radke and Sowers, the work didn’t stop. According to the outlet, a 'lobe' of the polar vortex, a wind pattern surrounding the Earths poles that has the coldest air on the globe, will head into areas like the Great Lakes region, the. It’s more prevalent in the colder seasons (i.e., June September at the South Pole and December March at the North Pole). It’s semi-permanent, meaning that with a few exceptions in atmospheric motion, the vortex is nearly always there. Businesses, schools, and governments shut down. The polar vortex is basically the airmass that typically sits close to the North and South Poles. Residents in Maine have even been hearing and seeing trees exploding from the sap and water inside them expanding. They are describing hearing loud booms in the woods through the night.The Midwest had been gearing up for the dangerously low temperatures for days, and when the polar vortex finally hit, more than 50 million people were impacted. ![]() The title for coldest wind chill Saturday morning in a town where people actually live belongs to Frenchville, Maine, at negative 61 degrees. Utility crews were able to restore power to nearly all with outages down to about 6,000 on Saturday morning. Kane said first responders had to use jaws of life tool to extricate the patients.Īt one point, almost 30,000 people were without power in Massachusetts. Two adults and a 2-year-old were hospitalized with minor injuries. Meteorologists used Siple’s method for more than 50 years. after a large tree fell on a moving car due to heavy wind. Paul Siple, an Antarctic explorer who grew up near the south shores of Lake Erie, devised the formula to calculate wind chill in 1945. Ryan/The Boston Globe / Getty Images)Īnother tree fell on moving car Friday in Massachusetts, FOX Weather confirmed with Westfield Fire Department Deputy Patrick Kane. Effective in 2001, the formula for winds in mph and Fahrenheit temperatures is: Wind chill temperature 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75V (0.16) + 0.4275TV (0.16). A man and his dog both sport big furry hoods to combat the extreme cold on Feb. ![]()
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