How cold has it been? NWS shares data on Cook County’s most recent cold stretch
Jan 28, 2026 11:14AM ● By Content Editor
By Laura Durenberger-Grunow - Boreal Community Media - January 28, 2026
It's been cold. Sea-smoke cold. For some, the stretch has felt long. But how long has it actually been? How have temperatures compared to those in other Cook County winters? To get some answers, Boreal Community Media reached out to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Duluth for a look at the data.
Related: Exploding trees? Why the trees in Minnesota’s forests crack, not explode
According to the NWS, data from the Grand Marais Airport on Devil Track Lake shows that overnight temperatures have consistently fallen "back below zero consecutively since the morning of Jan 18." That's 10 days now, for those who are counting. (The NWS reported temperatures from the Grand Marais Airport, but looked at temperatures around the entire county and verified the temperature patterns were the same throughout the area.)
Additionally, beginning the evening of January 21 through the afternoon of January 27, temperatures remained below zero.
The NWS also shared that the automated station at Seagull Lake, maintained by the U.S. Forest Service, recorded an actual temperature of -43°F on the morning of January 24 and -40°F on January 25. Preliminarily, these may be new records; however, the NWS shared that the data must go through final "quality control checks."
For comparison, the previous record at that site for January 24 was -37°F, set in 2013, and -37°F for January 25, set in 2019.
The NWS COOP observer at Gunflint Lake reported that on January 24, the site reached a new record minimum low of -39°F and a record cold high of -15°F. The following day, January 25, the station set another milestone, with a new record low of -40°F.
