How today's cold temps rank in the history books

(FOX 2) - Dangerously cold temperatures returned to Michigan last night. Much to our dismay, they'll stick around through Friday morning. 

Wednesday when we woke up, the wind chill range was between -35 and -40 degrees. At these numbers it will only take frost bite 10 minutes to set in to exposed skin.

So where do these extremely low temps fall in the history books? Are we living through the coldest day ever in Michigan right now? It may sure seem like it, but no. 

The FOX 2 Weather Authority Team looked back into all our records through January, February, March and even back into December. Today the forecast is going to rank as one of the top 30 coldest days of all time here in southeast Michigan, but it's not quite a record setter. 

The coldest day in our history rings in at -21 degrees on Jan. 21, 1984. The forecasted low for Wednesday night is -11 degrees.

We are expected to remain below zero all day on Wednesday, and if we stay below zero on Thursday too that'll put us around a 54 hours stretch of sub zero temps. That's a long time -- but that wouldn't be a record either. 

The longest stretch we've been below zero was for 68 hours on Feb. 8 - 11 in 1899. 

This is the coldest stretch we've had though in five years though. The most comprable stetch was the polar vortex we had back in 2014. 

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