MID-MICHIGAN (WJRT) (1/31/2019) - Some students Mid-Michigan are officially getting a full week off school thanks to heavy snow and record cold temperatures.
Some school districts in Bay and Midland decided to cancel classes for Friday around 1 p.m. Thursday. Some schools in Saginaw and Genesee counties closed later in the afternoon.
CLOSINGS: Click here to see the full list of school and organization closings for Mid-Michigan.
Many roads remain slippery from Monday's snow storm followed by bitterly cold temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday. Wind chills both days dipped to around -40 degrees.
Most Mid-Michigan locations registered their high temperatures for Wednesday just after midnight. Temperatures during the daylight hours and evening remained below zero -- the first time that happened in 25 years.
Wednesday was the record coldest high temperature in Flint for Jan. 30 at 2 degrees, beating the previous record of 8 degrees set in 1951. Saginaw tied its Jan. 30 record cold highest temperature of 8 degrees, also from 1951.
Flint could set more records for Thursday's date. The forecast high of 3 degrees would be the record coldest high temperature, beating 6 degrees in 1971, while the forecast low of -14 degrees easily beats the record low of -8 in 1963.
Saginaw is expected to tie the record coldest high temperature for Jan. 31 at 5 degrees and fall short of missing the record coldest temperature for this date. The forecast low is -10 degrees while the record is -15 degrees in 1994.
Flint and Saginaw should be slightly warmer on Friday but still very cold with high temperatures of 14 degrees. The low Friday morning is forecast at -8 degrees in Flint and -6 degrees in Saginaw.
Winds will slacken overnight, so wind chills won't be as much of a concern Friday morning as they have been the rest of this week.
Both Flint and Saginaw narrowly missed all-time January record cold temperatures. The coldest high temperatures ever recorded in January was -4 in both cities on Jan. 18, 1994.
The coldest low temperatures ever recorded in January were -25 degrees in Flint on Jan. 18, 1976, and -22 degrees in Saginaw on Jan. 19, 1994.
