From Saturday, Feb. 6, through Monday, Feb. 15, a period of ten days, the temperature at the official weather observation point at Hector Airport did not rise above 0 degrees. This streak ties five other ten-day streaks for fourth place for the longest continuous periods of temperatures zero or colder. The longest streak was 37 days in 1936. Tied in second place were two 11-day streaks, one in 1899 and one in 1996.
As impressive as this sounds, it must be pointed out that the top three streaks as well as the other ten-day streaks all produced much colder temperatures. The coldest temperature of this streak in Fargo was a modestly cold -25 degrees, which is not uncommonly cold for our winters. Much more impressive temperatures near -40 degrees were observed in northern North Dakota and Minnesota. Essentially, this was a long cold wave, but not an impressively cold one.
