Meteorologist Dave Baker from KATC TV-3 joined 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today and discussed the current icy blast of winter air affecting Acadiana.

The first question on everyone's mind this morning was the question we posed to Baker, how cold did it get this morning?  His response,

The official temperature is 20 degrees.  That's the coldest temperature we've seen since January of 2010.

We asked Baker if the 'Polar Vortex' was a new phenomenon and he said,

It's not necessarily new.  As the Earth spins it's an area that spins near the North Pole and occasionally you get dips in the Jet Stream which kinda opens the door and allows that Arctic air to come down.  It kinda gives us a full-force shot of cold polar air.

Baker pointed out that this Arctic chill is not the coldest weather we've had,

In December of 1989 we had 77 hours of temperatures below the freezing point and a low temperature of 9 degrees...But that is not the coldest it has ever been.  1899, February 13 is the all-time record cold temperature here in Lafayette where the temp plunged to 6 degrees and the high that day was 17.

Dave Baker had more observations which you can hear by clicking the blue arrow below:

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