CLEVELAND — It's over. Done. Finito. Finished. The streak ends at 18 days. The streak that News 5 has updated since day one, back on Jan. 23.
Technically, the moment it fell to the freezing mark was 6 a.m. on Jan. 22, but that does not count as a full day. After some additional tedious number-crunching, the final total ends up just shy of 430 hours in a row.
When treating each instance by hour rather than by day, it does not change its rank much, remaining in the top 11% of freezing-cold streaks in Cleveland's 150-plus years of record-keeping.
There have been 12 other times in Cleveland's recorded history with a longer daily streak than this year's 18-day streak, putting us at the 13th spot. It's the longest in over a decade.
Believe it or not, our 18-day streak is not even halfway to the record of 38 days in 1977. Cleveland didn't even reach 32 degrees once that January. That stands out as one of the crown-jewel records in Cleveland weather.
The next-closest streak is 34 days in 1985.
Most of these freezing-cold records date back to the 1800s and 1900s. The last time an 18-day or longer streak occurred was in 2015, over a decade ago — 2015 had some similarities with this winter, as it was the last time Cleveland saw more snow than it has seen to date this winter.
If it were not for Tuesday's 40-degree warmth, the following three days' forecast highs are all below freezing, which would have brought the streak to a hypothetical 22 days, and that would've broken us into the top 10 easily.
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