It’s no longer freezing in Chicago: Here’s how our recent cold stretch compares with the city’s coldest deep freezes on record

One thing about cold weather and Chicago — it’s not new. The city’s coldest recorded temperature took place Jan. 20, 1985, but many of the city’s lowest recorded temperatures came from arctic snaps in 1872 and 1899. The 1980s and 1990s saw frigid temperatures among the city’s coldest recorded, however only three days at or colder than 16 below — Jan. 6, 2014 and in two in January 2019 — took place after the year 2000.