Quote:
an 80 degree temperature shift in less than six hours -- from -40 to +40 (F) when a Chinook wind


That would be quite an event to experience.
Were there glass windows and other items which could not handle the rapid transition?

Also, I didn't mean to imply that "our" temperature change was record-breaking, or for that matter, that it is even too unusual.
According to The Storm King big chunks of Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, California have average daily temperature fluctuations of 45 degrees from July to October.

The US record temp. swing caused purely by local heating/cooling is 75 degrees (from 12 to 87) on September 21, 1954.

I believe (but can't find the link) that the record due to a changing front, etc., is somewhere around 100 degrees (-40 to 60 or vice versa) and occurred somewhere in one of the northern Plains states in just 2-3 hours.
[Citation Needed]

Though I wouldn't be surprised if Alaska can top that. And there must be some high altitude deserts somewhere in the world that are extremely brutal on a regular basis.

(Apologies for all the Fahrenheit numbers to all you Europeans who are now visualizing nearly boiling streams and don't consider "12" to be cold...)