The Official Cold Spot? Traditional Geocache
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Size: 
(regular)
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The coldest spot in Minnesota but the official record went to Tower MN. in Feb. 1996.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:
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"Tower and nearby Embarrass, also known as a“cold spot,” each recorded temperatures below -50°F(-45.6°C) in the week leading up to the 2 February1996 record, a fact that was reported widely in thenational media. In anticipation of record cold, themedia and other interested persons congregated on1 February at the home of R. Fowler, the official ob-server in Embarrass. Two persons familiar with theevents, G. Spoden of the Minnesota State Climatolo-gist Office, and meteorologist B. Watson, reported theminimum thermometer in the shelter had been bro-ken for some time at Embarrass but an electronicthermometer had been used in its place. As the temper-ature descended overnight at Embarrass, the electronicthermometer failed, some said due to all the televi-sion cameras and lights plugged into Mr. Fowler’s home, and the temperature record was lost. The me-dia then traveled the short distance to the home ofK. Hoppa, observer at Tower 3S. Mrs. Hoppa ob-served a temperature of -59.5°F (-50.8°C) at 0910LST, which was rounded to -60°F (-51.1°C) (U.S.temperatures are recorded in whole Fahrenheit de-grees). A thermometer in the shelter used for mediadisplay purposes by Mrs. Hoppa was then taken fromthe shelter by a reporter and placed in the nearbyswamp where it reportedly read -74°F (-58.9°C).With the failure of electricity at the Embarrass station,tourists visiting there overnight to experience the coldplaced two liquid-in-glass thermometers in the shel-ter and recorded lows of -60°F (-51.1°C) and -61°F(-51.7°C).The reported -74°F in the swamp near Tower 3Scannot be compared to official shelter temperaturessince thermometers exposed to the sky will cool farbelow the shelter air temperature on a clear calm night.Veracity of the -60°F at Tower 3S is supported by theexperience and good reputation of observer K. Hoppa,the reputation of the station as among the coldest inMinnesota, and the unofficial -60° and -61°F shel-ter temperatures at nearby Embarrass. Temperaturesare recorded in whole degrees, but the policy on whichway to round temperatures read to 0.5 degree mayvary through time and with local tradition.The observer at Tower 3S was instructed by themeteorologist in charge of the National Weather Ser-vice in Chanhassen, Minnesota, to round the -59.5°Fdown to -60°F. A National Weather Service (1996)observing handbook instructs that numbers endingwith 0.5 should be rounded to the larger number, “-1.5becomes -1. . . .” This would indicate that -59.5°Fshould have been rounded up to -59°F. Others havetold me the policy is to round to the even integer.Mrs. Hoppa reported that -60°F was a more pen-etrating cold than -40°F, people wore more clothes,cars started poorly, some fuel congealed, there washardly any traffic, and the governor canceled schoolthroughout Minnesota. Schools were closed for 2days at Tower. Newspaper reporters interviewedMrs. Hoppa as the record approached, and radio andtelevision stations from Minneapolis and Duluth madelive broadcasts from the Tower 3S site on the morn-ing of the record. Telephone interviews were givenby Mrs. Hoppa to reporters from around the UnitedStates and from abroad. As media stunts, one personcamped in her lawn overnight, another pounded a nailinto wood with a banana left outside in the -60°F cold,soap bubbles were blown to be seen freezing in mid-air, and water was tossed into the air to crackle andfreeze before falling to the ground. Birds were re-ported active around feeders at Tower as the sun rose, in spite of the temperature"
The cache is by the Embarrass River and is one of the coldest areas of Embarrass. Placed there when the temperature was a balmy -26 degrees
Plenty of trinkets and treasures. Enjoy
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