Local Temperature, wind chill to take a dip for New Year’s Polar Plunge.
Hundreds of brave souls will face subzero wind chills on Monday
Got the Polar Bear Plunge on your bucket list?
This might not be the best time to check it off the list and take the frigid leap into icy Lake Michigan.
The deep freeze that settled over Wisconsin on Christmas is sticking around through the end of next week and the forecast for New Year’s Day calls for a high temperature of only 4 degrees.
Factor in the wind chill, which is expected to dip to minus 21 by daybreak on Monday and rise to 9 below by the noon start of Milwaukee’s annual Polar Bear Plunge at Bradford Beach, and it could be even more dangerous than usual to dip a toe or more in Lake Michigan.
“You’re going to get hypothermic,” said Milwaukee Fire Battalion Chief 1 Erich Roden, a former Fire Department rescue diver. “Everybody wants to do the polar plunge once in their life; it’s a bucket list item. Unfortunately, it’s something that can cause a lot of harm.”
The department is dispatching two paramedic units to Bradford Beach and drysuit-clad rescue divers will be in the water keeping an eye on the hardy souls splashing into Lake Michigan.
Each year hundreds of people gather on the lakefront to watch or swim in a tradition started decades ago. Some years are warm — this past New Year’s the high temperature was 41 degrees — and some years are not so warm.
Like this New Year’s Day.
Low temperatures in the Milwaukee area on New Year’s Eve are forecast at minus 6 with northwest winds around 10 mph sending wind chills even lower, something partiers should take into consideration before heading outdoors to ring in the new year.
Surface water temperatures near the Milwaukee lakeshore are 34 to 35 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Which will make the water seem warm in comparison to the frigid air.
It doesn’t take long for frostbite and hypothermia to occur in the conditions forecast for Monday, and body heat is lost much quicker in water than air, about 25% faster, said Marc de Moya, chief of trauma surgery at Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin. When humans lose body heat, 90% leaves via skin; the other 10% is breathed out.
Symptoms of hypothermia include shivering, shaking, lethargy and not being able to contract muscles.
Mild symptoms occur when core temperatures drop from the normal 98.6 to 95. Severe hypothermia sets in when body temperatures hit the mid- to low 80s, which is typically when people become unconscious and their hearts stop.
Plus, there’s frostbite to worry about — another way the body tries to stay alive in cold temperatures by drawing blood away from extremities toward organs. As blood stops flowing to fingers, toes, hands and feet, clots can form, leading to blackened extremities, said de Moya.
De Moya’s advice for Polar Bear plungers?
“Just hurry the heck up out of the water. Splash around a few seconds and then come right back out,” de Moya said. “As soon as they come out, they should dry off and get out of their wet gear as quick as they can.”
And while some swimmers may bring something to drink to warm up, or may still be working off a New Year’s Eve hangover, a shot of whiskey, tequila or brandy is definitely not a good idea.
Alcohol “slows down the body’s ability to produce heat,” said de Moya. “Although you have that initial warm feeling of the alcohol going down your throat, the problem is you don’t shiver as much and the amount of heat you produce is slowed down by depressing your central nervous system.”
If Monday’s forecast is correct, it would put 2018 in the top four coldest New Year’s days on record in Milwaukee, said Ben Herzog, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sullivan. The coldest high temperature was 2 degrees recorded in 1969, followed by a tie for second place between 1924 and 1974 at 3 degrees.
Currently in fourth place is 6 degrees set in 1929.
The normal high and low temperatures for Milwaukee on Jan. 1 are 29 and 16 degrees.
While frigid conditions might deter some Polar Bear swimmers this New Year’s, the unseasonably low temperatures could have the opposite effect.
“I would say it won’t deter anybody because it kind of adds to the panache to say you did the Polar Bear Plunge when it’s minus 10,000,” said Roden, who advises plungers to warm up immediately after leaving the water “rather than hanging out and taking selfies for 45 minutes.”