With the cold air and snow we've had in place the last week, it's easy for morning low temperatures to drop to single digits and in some cases sub-zero temperatures when the skies are clear and the winds are calm. 

You may be wondering...what is the coldest Louisville has ever been? In fact, many of you will probably remember it well!

Coldest temperatures

The coldest temperature ever recorded in Louisville was back on January 19th, 1994 when we dropped to a staggering -22 degrees! If you remember your years well, this was a part of the 1994 snowstorm that also brought in the entire state of Kentucky's coldest temperature ever at -37 degrees in Shelbyville!

The coldest temperature drop Louisville has ever experienced in 24 hours was a crazy 58 degree drop back on January 22nd, 1963. Louisville went from a temperature of 43 degrees at 11pm all the way down to -12 within 24 hours!

So, that's some of the coldest days, but what about the coldest winter in Louisville? This was during the winter of 1977-78. The average temperature of the entire winter was only around 27 degrees! This was also the last time that the Ohio River froze over! There were almost 30 days with below-zero temperatures that allowed that to happen! 

Image credit: The Courier-Journal Billy Davis 

Here's a cool montage of photos from that winter!

Snowiest 

The snowiest single day in Louisville was....you probably guessed it, back in 1994. Specifically, on January 17th, Louisville received 15.5" of snow, all in about 8 hours!

For comparison, this latest snowfall we saw on January 5th of this year saw 9" of snowfall in one day! This is still a big record maker, as it officially went down as the 3rd snowiest January day on record!