Originally Published: 15 JAN 24 11:04 ET

By Brandon Miller, Monica Garrett and Matt Stiles, CNN

(CNN) — Iowa has held the Republican caucuses every four years since 1972 in either January or February, putting them at risk for cold, but nothing like what’s forecast Monday.

Live Coverage: Follow the latest Iowa caucus developments and results here

Iowans woke up on Monday to temperatures in the minus 10s with wind chills as low as minus 40.

With wind chills this extreme, frostbite is possible on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.

Monday’s caucuses are forecast to be the coldest ever with forecast high temperatures below zero across much of the state and widespread wind chills in the minus 30s.

The forecast high temperature on Monday in Des Moines will be nearly 20 degrees colder than the previous coldest caucus day on January 19, 2004.

The record caucus cold spans the rest of the state, including other cities like Sioux City, Cedar Rapids and Davenport.

Most of the state will not climb above zero degrees Monday afternoon, something it’s been dealing with since blizzard conditions and then brutally cold Arctic air surged in Friday and Saturday.

Des Moines has been below zero since Saturday afternoon and isn’t forecast to climb above it until Tuesday afternoon. The city hadn’t been below zero since February 2021 before this brutal spell.

High temperatures have been nearly 40 degrees below average in recent days.

Even though temperatures will rise into the afternoon hours Monday, they will dip once again as the caucuses kick off at 7 p.m. Central Time and fall through the evening.

Caucus-goers will also have to deal with slick roads from leftover snow from the weekend blizzard. Back-to-back storms brought nearly 2 feet of snow to Des Moines from Monday to Friday last week, the second-snowiest five-day stretch on record for the city.

Road conditions were improving across much of the state, Iowa DOT maps showed, but there were still partial and fully snow-covered roads across southern Iowa Wednesday morning.

The extreme cold in Iowa will moderate a bit by Wednesday as high temperatures hit the mid-to-high teens, before another shot of cold air arrives Thursday and drops high temperatures back into the single digits.

CNN meteorologists Rob Shackelford and Mary Gilbert contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire