Battling the cold: Laramie hits 5th-lowest temperature in recorded history

Zach Finch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Cheyenne office, said Friday’s temperatures were “at least 30-40 degrees below normal for early January.”

“Basically, we got a lot of snow over the past few days, and we had an Arctic air mass move down, so the combination of having snow on the ground and having a really cold air mass in place — and light winds, too, that does help to get it colder — that’s how we got those cold temperatures,” he said.

He said Laramie can expect to see a little bit of warming during the weekend and Monday, with high temperatures Monday projected to return to the mid-40s.

This month marks the area’s 18th coldest start to January since data was first collected in 1948, Finch said.

“Last year, 2016, we were actually the 13th coldest,” he said. “So, we were a little bit colder. But this cold of a start is definitely unusual.”

The cold temperatures led to two water main breaks early Friday morning — one near the intersection of 25th and Sheridan streets and the other by the intersection of Thornburgh Drive and Short Place, said Tony Shifflett, a construction inspector with Laramie’s Public Works Department, adding the city expected to have both breaks repaired by the end of the day.

“These are older cast iron pipes, 6-inch water mains that have had some issues in the past also,” he said.

Workers responded to the break on Sheridan Street first, he said.

“It was a little harder to get the water to run out of the area without causing a problem,” he said. “So, they were going to work on that one first, and it affected quite a few people, actually — the senior housing unit there on the corner of 26th, there was quite a few of them out of water, but they were going to get them on it pretty quick.”

K-12 students were also affected by the cold weather, as Albany County School District No. 1 announced schools would close for the day.

ACSD No. 1 Superintendent Jubal Yennie said the district initially opted to delay school start times by two hours, but when temperatures stayed low and wind chill warnings remained in effect, parents were notified schools would close.

Additionally, the cold temperatures meant some of the district’s school buses had difficulty starting in the morning, Yennie said.

“We couldn’t get the entire fleet going,” he said. “It was pretty cold.”

School is expected to resume Monday, Yennie said.

Aimee Binning, Albany County Emergency Management Agency coordinator, said she encouraged residents to stay home if possible, but if travel was necessary to make sure to bring jumper cables.

“Anytime you’ve got extreme cold temperatures, people have difficulty starting their vehicles,” she said. “If they do slide off the road they need to have warm clothing to protect their skin, because it doesn’t take that long to get frostbite.”

She commended the school district for being “really proactive in making sure that the school-aged children were safe.”

“I know that that can sometimes be hard for families that still have to work, but I think that that was a good idea for the temperatures, the extreme temperatures that we were seeing out in our county,” she said.