Sudbury has been in a temperature free fall for the past week and set new record lows on Nov. 17 and 18.
The cold snap hit on Nov. 14 and the city has seen numerous extreme cold alerts over the past six days, including a pair of new records for unseasonably cold weather.
Nov. 17 saw the mercury dip all the way down to -16.3 degrees C, breaking the 1995 mark of -15. The record-setting cold continued a day later as temperatures dropped even further, hitting a low of -18.4 degrees C, edging out the 1986 record of -18.
"This cold stretch is being caused by an arctic air mass out of the Northwest Territories," said Environment Canada meteorologist Gerald Cheng. "It's moved through the prairies and into Northern Ontario. It actually started on Nov. 14 and we've seen a continuation into this week."
The cold weather has been unrelenting, and today's low is expected to hit -16.6, but won't break the record low set in 1978 when the mercury hit -17.5 degrees C.
Need to think some warm thoughts? Think all the way back to 1985, when Greater Sudbury set its record high temperature for Nov. 20 when it was t-shirt weather and the high was sitting at 14.4 degrees.
"Sudbury actually saw a cold snap around the same time last year too," said Cheng. "It hit around Remembrance Day, but it didn't persist quite as long as this one. It's right around the same time though that you are seeing the first bite of winter."
Cheng says that the cold temperatures will persist for most of the week, but we'll break free and be back to more seasonal temperatures by the weekend. Friday's forecast is calling for a high of 1 and a low of -3. Periods of rain and snow are expected throughout the weekend with temperatures hovering near the freezing mark.
"The seasonal norm for Sudbury is right around zero for the daytime high, and getting down to -7 overnight," said Cheng. "This cold snap has just felt very drastic because it was only about two weeks ago when you were seeing highs of around 7. It's been a very steep drop off in temperature."
