Records are falling as winter weather makes early appearance in Lansing area
Ken PalmerLANSING - You can go ahead and call it a historically significant cold spell.
After setting a snowfall record on Monday and a temperature record on Tuesday, the Lansing region has a chance to set another mark on Wednesday.
Temperatures were expected to plunge to around 5 degrees on Wednesday morning. If it gets a few degrees colder than that, Lansing could match or beat the low temperature record for the date of 1 degree, set way back in 1872, the National Weather Service said.
In fact, it looks and feels a lot more like January than November in mid-Michigan.
Lansing received 5.6 inches of snow from Monday's storm, doubling the previous record for the date – 2.8 inches – set in 1933, said Andrea Honor, a weather service meteorologist based in Grand Rapids.
Spotters recorded seven inches in both Haslett and Bath Township and six inches in Okemos, the weather service said.
Tuesday's high of 24 degrees set a new record for the lowest high temperature for Nov. 12 in Lansing, besting the previous mark of 29 degrees, set in 1995.
Record-setting or not, it's going to be really cold on Wednesday morning, with lows in the single digits and wind chill factors as low as minus 6 degrees, forecasters said.
Highs will be in the mid-20s, with south winds of 7 to 14 mph making it feel much colder, the weather service said
There's a decent chance of snow on Wednesday night and Thursday, enough to leave roads slick for the morning commute.
The good news? Temperatures should start climbing back up into the 30s by Thursday. By early next week, it could even get up into the 40s, the weather service said.
Contact Ken Palmer at (517) 377-1032 or kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.