Cold takes residents’ breaths away- Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois)

UPDATED: Negative 30 with a wind chill of minus 45.

That is the bad news forecast for the overnight low Thursday into today, and according to meteorologist Mike McClure of the National Weather Service, Davenport, three cold records are expected to fall.

“Our all-time record low is 28 below zero that occurred on Feb. 3, 1996,” McClure said. “Our lowest temperature recorded for all of January is 27 below, which occurred twice, once on Jan. 2, 1979, and on Jan. 5, 1884. And then there is the record for daily cold for Jan. 16, which is minus 23 set in 1888.”

For sure, the daily record will fall, he said, and it is very likely the record for coldest ever and coldest for January will tumble right along with the mercury, he said.

It's never been colder in Cedar Rapids | GazetteOnline.com - Cedar Rapids, Iowa City

CEDAR RAPIDS - Colder than the Twin Cities. Colder than Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Colder than Fargo. Colder than Fairbanks or even Point Barrow, Alaska.

That’s how cold it was this morning n Cedar Rapids — where it was colder than it’s ever been in recorded weather history.

At 7:51 a.m., the temperature dipped to minus 29, according to the National Weather Service.

Friday morning “will probably be as cold or colder than (Thursday) morning,” said Dan Ferry, metorologist at the weather service’s Davenport office.

Cornish freeze hits hard

Southern England Farms’ technical director Alasdair MacLennan says it has been a very difficult winter. “Temperatures have been below average from November onwards, but last week temperatures hit -10°C on crops across Cornwall. There is a lot of damage to veg and we are still assessing the impact.”

Nigel Clare, managing director at Marshalls, agrees. “This year, the cold conditions have been the worst that I have encountered in Cornwall for at least 10 years,” he says. “Our crops have been running well behind normal expected harvesting times, especially cauliflower, which has been four to five weeks behind. This is causing major headaches, with supply patterns severely disrupted and, combined with abnormally cold conditions in Spain, has resulted in a major shortage of brassica crops throughout December and early January. Coupled with some poor plantings and drillings of spring greens during the summer, this means that this has been the lowest volume taken out of the Cornish region for cauliflower and broccoli for as long as I can remember.”