Photo by Mike Lamb Ray Alderman clears snow away from his Last Stop CD Shop on Main Street in Marshall Thursday afternoon. Marshall residents woke up to more snow flurries after suffering through three days of below zero temperatures.

MARSHALL — The polar vortex sweeping through southwest Minnesota broke a Marshall weather record on Thursday, according to National Weather Service data.

The recorded low temperature in Marshall for Jan. 31 was 29 degrees below zero — a whole 8 degrees colder than the record set in 1982, said Brad Adams, the observing program leader for the National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls. The 29-below figure was the low temperature for the time period between 7 a.m. Wednesday and 7 a.m. Thursday, he said.

The low temperature recorded Jan. 30 in Marshall wasn’t a record-breaker, but at 22 degrees below zero, it was in the neighborhood of Marshall’s all-time low for that date. Adams said the current low temperature record for Jan. 30 was 25 degrees below zero in 1966.

The NWS doesn’t keep historical records of wind chill factors, but some of the coldest wind chill values for Marshall this week were reported Tuesday night, Adams said. The lowest wind chill Tuesday was 59 degrees below zero. In that same period, wind chills of 56 degrees below zero were observed in Tracy, and wind chills of 53 degrees below zero were observed in Pipestone.

The month of January was a cold one for Marshall, although not quite the coldest on record. Adams said Marshall experienced a total of 15 days this month where the low temperature was below zero, and 7 consecutive days where the temperature was at 10 degrees below zero or colder. The all-time record for consecutive January days at ten below or colder is 18 days, he said.

The Marshall area will be experiencing some weather whiplash over the next week. The NWS forecasts daytime high temperatures of 38 degrees on Saturday. However, freezing rain and snow are expected Sunday night, and temperatures will likely drop back down to the single digits the rest of the week.

In some ways, life was back to normal in Marshall Thursday after this week’s severe cold. Area schools returned to class, although some districts — including Marshall — started two hours late. Community Transit was back in operation, and postal delivery was back in service in Minnesota.

However, Marshall Municipal Utilities crews will still be working to respond to a broken water line reported this week north of the Marshall golf course. Jeff Larson, water operations manager at MMU, said the break was not a large one, and crews would be repairing it today.

Tuesday and Wednesday were very busy for MMU, Larson said, with reports of broken pipes in residences, and broken water meters. Many of the affected pipes were along the exterior walls of buildings, or in basements. Some were in buildings that have had no problems for years, he said.

“It had just gotten that cold,” Larson said.

Larson said there are some precautions local residents can take if they suspect a pipe in their home is at risk of freezing. Larson recommended measuring the water temperature with a thermometer if it seems to be getting colder. If the water temperature is around 36 degrees, he recommended running the faucet so a stream of water about as thick as a pencil is coming out. It will help reduce the chances of the pipe freezing.

Larson said there might still be the possibility for main breaks in Marshall, as the area experiences some big temperature fluctuations in the coming days. Shifting frost in the ground is often a cause for line breaks, he said.

Between the blowing and drifting snow and the temperature, this week has also been a challenge for Lyon County road crews, said county highway superintendent Dean Berg. From Sunday to Tuesday, snowplow crews were just trying to keep the roads open, he said. On Wednesday, plow crews were able to get county roads cleared off, but the extreme cold posed risks for the electrical connections in their equipment.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a winter like this,” Berg said. There may be more challenges in store this weekend, if the region gets freezing rain. Depending on conditions, he said the county may pre-sand some areas of roadway to help prevent slipping. “We’re going to keep watching the weather.”