The Coldest Place in Michigan: Does Your Town Hold the Title?

In Michigan, we can handle pretty much anything Mother Nature has to throw at us. Tornado? We watch them from our front lawn while hearing sirens go off that are specifically designed to alert you to get into your basement. Torrential downpours? We wake up in the morning and check our sump pumps. Snow? We shovel, move, haul, plow, and slide on it for what feels like 15 months a year.

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But, then there's cold. Michigan winters and cold go together like Bonnie and Clyde, legendary but deadly. Logically if you were looking for the historical low, you would think that you'd have to look to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but that isn't the case.

The Coldest Recorded Temperature in Michigan's History

To find the historic low temp, you need to travel back to February 9th, 1934. It was on this date that the temperature reached a low of 51 degrees below zero. At 51 degrees below zero, the elements begin attacking the human body from the outside in. It's so cold that crystal formations can develop on your skin and result in death.

Related: Here's When Michigan Could Get the First Frost of the Season

At 51 degrees below zero, you are obviously in danger of hypothermia but you're blood pressure also tanks, meaning you get less blood flow to your brain and heart. Losing oxygen-rich blood flow to those two vital organs you are susceptible to injury by being exposed for just a few minutes.

So which Michigan town holds the title of the Coldest Place in Michigan? That honor goes to Vanderbilt, which is a small town in northern Lower Michigan. You have seen the exit signs when heading up to the Mackinac Bridge on I-75 at the Mill St Exit 290.

On that fateful day in 1934 residents stayed indoors for several days as the cold front had settled in and had reached a record-setting 51 degrees below zero. The cold finally broke when the system dumped a huge amount of snowfall covering everything in sight.

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With extreme weather tourism picking up momentum, Vanderbilt, Michigan may have a new form of tourist to engage.