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Record-setting chills sweep through southwestern Ontario

Environment Canada issued a flash freeze warning as a wave of arctic air descends over southern Ontario on Jan. 6, 2014. Overnight temperatures are expected to reach -25 C. Authorities are warning of an icy commute as slush leftover from a snow-filled weekend freezes with the plunging temperatures.

Bitter cold and extreme wind chills swept into southern Ontario last night, setting some new records and coming close to breaking some very old ones.

Southwestern Ontario is feeling the full lash of the polar vortex this morning, as temperature dipped down into the -20s overnight, and wind chills plummeted down to near -40 or even colder just before sunrise.

The severe cold set a new record for January 7 in Windsor. The temperature dropped to -25.2°C overnight, which according to what Environment Canada meteorologist Rob Kuhn told Blackburn News, breaks the old record of -21.1°C from all the way back in 1884. No word yet on whether wind chills in the area broke records, but they dipped down to -39 by this morning, which is apparently the coldest it's been there in around 20 years!

[ Related: Freezing weather shuts down Toronto's Pearson International Airport ]

Hamilton set a new record this morning as well, as the temperature reached -24°C in the city, beating the 1968 record low of -20°C. The wind chill this morning was one of the coldest in the area, reaching -40 at around 2 a.m., although it still had a way to go before it beat the record of -43 from 1994.

In Kitchener, temperatures came to within a hair's-breadth of breaking a 71-year-old record this morning. According to The Record, the weather station at the University of Waterloo reached -26.08°C, while nearby Waterloo-Wellington Airport recorded -26 degrees (airport reports don't use decimals). The lowest temperature recorded in the city for January 7 was -26.1°C in 1943.

In Toronto, the cold didn't break any records either, but it still came close. The temperature came within 2 degrees of breaking the 1940 record of -26.1°C, and the -39 wind chills between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. were getting close to the all-time record low of -44.7°C wind chill the city saw on January 4th, 1981. The cold this morning was so extreme that the nation's largest airport, Pearson International, completely shut down — grounding all flights and stranding thousands of travellers.

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When will this punishing cold finally leave us be?

Well, from all indications, the polar vortex is continuing to trek eastward, and it will take the extreme cold and wind chills with it. However, it's going to be another day or so before southwestern Ontario actually sees some relief, since wind chills are still expected to be around -30 on Wednesday morning. Also, the severe chills aren't going away as much they're just moving along with the vortex, so those -30 wind chills are going to be sweeping through eastern Ontario, southern Quebec and into the Maritimes by Wednesday morning as well.

After this deep freeze has moved on, it looks like it'll be quite nice through to the weekend, with temperatures actually climbing above freezing. Whether that will result in more freezing rain and then another plunge into the deep freeze ... well, we'll just have to watch and see.

(Photo courtesy CBC)

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