It'll be the coldest St. Patrick's Day Metro Detroit has experienced in 5 decades

DETROIT (FOX 2) - It’s a chilly St. Patrick’s Day across Metro Detroit, and if it feels colder than usual, you’re not imagining things.

Afternoon temperatures are struggling to reach around 29 degrees, which is a far cry from where we typically sit in mid-March. Average highs this time of year are usually pushing the upper 40s, so we’re running roughly 20 degrees below normal today.

And this isn’t just "a little cold." From a historical perspective, it’s actually pretty notable.

Looking back through Detroit’s climate records, a high of 29 degrees on March 17 would make this the coldest St. Patrick’s Day we’ve seen in nearly 50 years. The last time we were this cold on this date was in 1976, with a similar high. You have to go even further back—into the early and mid-1900s—to find significantly colder St. Patrick’s Days.

The coldest on record? That came in 1941, when the high temperature only reached 13 degrees. A handful of other years in the early 1900s also saw highs stuck in the teens and low 20s, but those kinds of numbers are few and far between.

So while today’s chill isn’t record-breaking, it firmly lands in the "rare" category.

And just as a quick reminder, St. Patrick’s Day is always celebrated on March 17 every year—it doesn’t move around like some other holidays. The weather, however, clearly does whatever it wants.

The good news is this kind of cold doesn’t usually last long this time of year. Even though spring can be slow to arrive in Michigan, history tells us warmer days aren’t far behind.

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