New State Record Low

Records fell left and right at the end of January as temperature tumble well below zero degrees.  Rockford broke a couple records during the cold stretch between the 30th and 31st, with one of those records being the all-time record low temperature for Rockford.  On the morning of January 31st, the air temperature dipped to -31 degrees!  But Rockford wasn't the only location that broke a record that morning.  In Mt. Carroll (Carroll County) the mercury dropped to -38 degrees!  At the time, there was talk that, that temperature could have broken the all-time state record low. 

It was officially confirmed Tuesday by the State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC) that, in fact, the -38 degrees recorded in Mt. Carroll that morning was valid!  Representatives with the Illinois State Water Survey, National Weather Service, the Midwest Regional Climate Center and the National Center for Environment Information were able to validate that the observation was within the range that a reporting instrument can detect, and that the instrument is working properly.

The previous state record low was -36 degrees set in Congerville (Woodford County), back on January 5th, 1999.  Prior to that, however, Mt. Carroll held the record of -35 degrees in January 1930 and was then later tied in February 1996 when a reporting station in Elizabeth (Jo Daviess County) reported a temperature at -35 degrees.