when you look at the frostbite conditions you re looking at frostbite in 20 minutes or less. monday evening when all of these caucus events are happening you re looking at windchill values as cold as 25 to 35 below zero with frostbite in 30 minutes or less. here s a look at some of the caucus temperatures over the last couple years. most of them in the 30s and 40s. 2004 sticks out, 16 degrees. but that high on monday will only be minus 4. that is brutal. i know what frostbite is. i have had that before on my feet, that isn t good, and it wasn t in temperatures that low. what about for the rest of the country? it s not just iowa. this arctic air is spreading as far south as the mexican border. you can see the windchill alerts from canada to mexico, where in the heart of the winter warning you could have windchills as cold as 45 degrees below zero. these are the morning temperatures for the northern plains. all subzero through tuesday morning. they might not break zero degrees until
at just negative 4 degrees in des moines on monday. i can t even imagine what that feels like. elisa rafah is in the wenter center. i mean, that is brutal cold. that is like frostbite weather. we re talking in minutes, frostbite conditions. so very dangerous and life-threatening. this is a look at the current temperatures right now in iowa. they re all subzero. minus 9 right now in des moines. minus 5 in mason city. sioux city, 10 degrees below zero. windchills are 20 to 30 below zero. windchill warnings in effect for most of the state through tuesday as we continue with this dangerous cold, as we go through the next couple days. and everybody is mentioning, yeah, iowa is used to cold, but minus 4 degrees in des moines is 30 degrees below average. this is not normal. yes, iowa gets cold in winter, but not this cold. temperatures across the state will be about 30 degrees below average.
this is 30 degrees colder than average for the time of year. so it is not normal to get temperatures like this, this time of year. tack on the windchill, you re looking at windchill frostbite times at 30 minutes or less. again, taking minutes to get some frostbite conditions out there as we go into monday evening. when you look at all of the past caucuses, most of them have been with temperatures in the 30s and 40s. 2004 sticks out with a high of only 16 degrees. it looks like as we go into monday, we re going to far outpace that with the high temperature only minus 4 in des moines. that would go down as the coldest caucus on record. a look at the broader picture, windchill alerts from the caw nadian border down to the mexican border with some of the heart of the windchill warning for windchills as cold as 45 degrees below zero, incredibly dangerous and life-threatening. that s where you get the frostbite conditions in minutes. as this cold air dives south,
evening, you re looking at windchills at 30 degrees below zero with frostbite conditions and 20 to 25 minutes or less. look at all of these caucus temperatures. most of them in the 30s and 40s. 2004, 16 degrees. it looks like we might not even break zero on monday in des moines with the high of minus two. the highest temperature. in the evening, as people might be out caucusing, you re looking at rare temperatures at ten degrees below zero. factor in the windchill, you have windchills at 31 degrees below zero in des moines. so again, frostbite conditions in 20 minutes or less. you re look at the scope of the cold diving south as we go through the rest of the week. 80% of the u.s. will be below freezing by tuesday where multiple record could fall. we re talking 250 record cold highs or lows could happen by tuesday as we have this arctic blast. though we are in the warmest winter on record for a lot of those places. jim? eliasa raffa, thank you so
cnn s derek van dam is tracking it. this is life-threatening cold. yeah, in fact, here comes the arctic invasion that the brunt will be felt this weekend across iowa and into the today monday being caucus day and the national weather service not mincing their words when discussing this dangerous cold like erica mentioned saying that we are entering into one of the most prolonged and coldest periods in recent memory for central iowa. and what you re looking at here is the state of iowa, various cities, here s des moines, for instance, this is the projected windchill, negative 34 on monday and below it is the time to take for exposed skin to reach frostbite so you can go as little as 20 minutes with exposed skin and have frostbite conditions with that type of windchill. this will be the coldest caucus day ever recorded. this is des moines, for instance, the actual forecast high temperature, negative 4,