Accuweather's story on the recent cold wave at Northeast Mexico

From ACCUWEATHER.COM

Special thanks to Jesse Ferrell for the story

Rare Cold Wave, Ice in Northeast Mexico

Jan 14, 2011; 3:21 PM ET

A rare cold snap has chilled northeast Mexico this week, leading to school truancy, opened shelters for residents, and rare freezing rain in some places. AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan Arturo S., who has reported on weather stories there previously, said:

"Look how much ice accumulated at Chipinque Park, which is above 4000 ft and less than 8 mi from downtown Monterrey. Local rangers claim old trees fell due to the weight of the ice, something really uncommon. Ice started around Tuesday night and lasted until yesterday by noon."

This YouTube video shows a view of the ice:

NOTE: All references to news stories below are in Spanish but you can translate them via Google, which is where the translations I use come from.

The freezing rain was confirmed by a local newspaper which said "In the metropolitan area, the low temperatures ranged between one and three degrees accompanied by a persistent drizzle that led to a marked truancy in the schools." Another article claims that 90% of students from one state were missing from their classrooms on Tuesday.





Weather records are hard to come by south of the border, but our weather database said that Saltillo's temperatures on Tuesday featured a low of 25 F and a high of 34 F -- their normals this time of year are 48 & 68! That took them to an incredible -24 F for an average departure. With a high temperature of 42, Monterrey's departure from average was -19 F. A map of the coldest temperatures this month is shown above.

It wasn't just cold -- but also wind and waves near Oaxaca - a media report said "occasional gusts to 110 kilometers per hour on the Isthmus and Gulf of Tehuantepec, gradually weakening and waves up to four meters high in the coastal zone." In Victoria, the cold wave was blamed for a 30% increase in respiratory diseases. And near Saltillo, a 30-car pileup was caused by fog, and I imagine ice might have had something to do with it.