How Cold Does It Really Get?
Near International Falls, Minnesota
A trademark is one thing, but what does the Icebox of the Nation actually feel like? The coldest temperature ever officially recorded in International Falls was negative fifty five degrees Fahrenheit, set on January sixth, nineteen oh nine, back when the weather station stood at a different spot in town. In a typical year the town endures well over one hundred days when the temperature never climbs above freezing, and deep winter routinely delivers stretches of thirty and forty below.
Numbers like that turn ordinary life strange. Car engines are left plugged into block heaters, tires can freeze flat on one side and thump for the first mile, and a cup of boiling water thrown into the air on the coldest mornings vanishes into a puff of ice crystals before it lands. To be fair, International Falls is not always the single coldest place in the lower forty eight states.
Nearby valleys near the town of Embarrass often dip even lower, and Minnesota's all time state record of negative sixty degrees was set near the town of Tower in February of nineteen ninety six, while Embarrass recorded an unofficial negative sixty four. But International Falls owns the reputation, the trademark, and the winter festival, proof that here the deep freeze is worn as a badge of honor.
