Record low so cold you'll shiver your timbers

So, as Ed McMahon so pointedly always asked "Tonight Show" cohort Johnny Carson, "How ... cold ... was it?"

So cold that Starbucks was serving coffee popsicles.

When your dashboard thermometer tells you it is -9 outside, you can usually assume that's the coldest air of the day. But the Greencastle area actually bottomed out at -14 degrees Tuesday morning.

So cold our timbers were shivering on their own.

So cold that our icicles had icicles ...

You get the picture.

So cold that the Greencastle area demolished a 115-year low-temperature record Tuesday morning. By 12 degrees.

And that frigid figure of fate from the official thermometer of Putnam County weather observer for the National Weather Service, Diana Foust was -- wait for it -- 13.9 degrees below zero.

"Thus," she advised, rounding up, "14 below zero!"

Indianapolis, meanwhile, posted a less-extreme record low of -6 for the date (Feb. 24) at 7:50 a.m., eclipsing the previous mark of -2 that had been set in 1900. National Weather Service records at Indianapolis date back to 1871.

With less than a week before the March 1 start of meteorological spring and less than a month until the official first day of spring (March 20), the latest weather forecasts indicate February 2015 is likely to become the third-coldest February on record, the National Weather Service said.

Currently, the average temperature through Feb. 23 stands at 21.8 degrees, one degree colder than last year.

Overall, the projected average temperature for February 2015 is expected to fall to 19.3 degrees by the end of the month on Saturday.

That projected temperature of 19.3 degrees is nearly 13 degrees below the normal average temperature of 32.1 degrees for February.

This February is expected to be slightly colder than February 2007 and the coldest February since 1979.

This month also would be the coldest month on record in central Indiana since December 1989.

Overall, February will be the coldest and snowiest month this winter for the Indianapolis area.

After a relatively mild and snowless December and a week-long bitter cold spell in January, a prolonged cold and snowy pattern began on Feb. 12 and is expected to continue into early March.

The top five coldest Februarys of record at Indianapolis, ranked by average temperature are:

1 -- February 1978 at 17.8 degrees.

2 -- February 1979 at 18.8 degrees.

3 -- February 2015 (projected) at 19.3 degrees.

4 -- February 2007 at 19.7 degrees.

5 -- February 1905 at 20.1 degrees.