Coldest Air of the Season Set Records in the Rockies, West

This system has also brought a major, potentially record-setting October snowstorm in the Northern Plains.

Very sharp temperature drops have accompanied the front.

After a high of 74 degrees Wednesday afternoon, Cheyenne, Wyoming, experienced wind chills near zero degrees Thursday morning. Denver dropped from a high of 83 degrees Wednesday to a low of 13 degrees Thursday night, a 70-degree temperature change, which ranked as the greatest one- and two-day temperature drops on record for October and tied for the fourth-largest two-day temperature drop for any month in the Mile High City.

Record-cold temperatures have also been set this week.

Great Falls, Montana, dropped to zero degrees Thursday morning, setting a new record for the coldest temperature so early in the season. The previous earliest zero-degree temperature was on Oct. 27, 1925.

Daily record lows were set Thursday morning in Burns, Oregon (8 degrees), Denver (13 degrees), Colorado Springs (14 degrees), Yakima, Washington (21 degrees), Pendleton, Oregon (22 degrees), Boise, Idaho (23 degrees), Portland, Oregon (33 degrees), and Salt Lake City (42 degrees).

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Denver plummeted to 9 degrees Friday morning, making it the city's coldest temperature so early in the autumn in any year dating back to the 1870s.

Daily record lows were also set Friday in Butte, Montana (3 degrees), Scottsbluff, Nebraska (13 degrees), Sheridan, Wyoming (14 degrees), Colorado Springs, Colorado, (9 degrees), Pueblo, Colorado (17 degrees), Goodland, Kansas 918 degrees), Grand Junction, Colorado (19 degrees), Pocatello, Idaho (19 degrees), Bend, Oregon (19 degrees), Oklahoma City (32 degrees), Wichita, Kansas (33 degrees), and Midland, Texas (40 degrees).

On Saturday morning, new daily record lows were set in Grand Junction, Colorado (21 degrees), Dalhart, Texas (24 degrees), Oklahoma City (30 degrees) and Portland, Oregon (38 degrees).

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