Record for Northern Minn.: 40 Below

It was so cold that resident Nick McDougall couldn't get his car trunk to close after he got out his charger to kick-start his dead battery. By late morning, the temperature had risen all the way to 18 — below zero.

"This is about as cold as it gets, this is bad. There's no wind — it's just cold," said McDougall, 48, a worker at The Fisherman, a convenience store and gas station in the town on the Canadian border. "People just don't go out, unless you have to go to work."

Residents of the area use electric engine block heaters to keep their cars from freezing.

"You plug in your car, for sure, and you put the car in the garage if you can," McDougall said. His garage is full of other things, so he had to park outside — a "big mistake."

The previous record low for Feb. 11 in International Falls was 37 below, set in 1967, said meteorologist Mike Stewart at the weather service in Duluth.