Here's the NWS data for Kansas City, MO for January 7:
(scroll down for hour by hour data - coldest that afternoon/evening of the 7th as 32F (and that was at midnight - the rest of the afternoon/evening it was 33-37F).
And here's the data for the next day (check out 2 am). It was 33F at 2 am:
That's 6 degrees F warmer than 27F, which is why I mention it. The temperature never got to 27 on either the 7th or the 8th during night time hours.
On the 9th, it
does get colder. That's the day the frozen bodies were found. Surely they had been out there since after midnight on Sunday (so, early on the 8th).
I mention this because it needs to be 32F or colder for the bodies to be frozen. People obviously die of hypothermia at temperatures far warmer, but having an actual frozen body (as reported in the DM) means colder temperatures. I just want to have the two components separated (how cold it was when the three men apparently went outside vs. how cold it was after they were deceased).
33F is plenty cold - odd that one man apparently didn't take his jacket, plausible that he thought he was only going outside for a quick smoke. 28F is the lowest temp recorded for January 7 - but that's early in the morning, way before the game. From game time onward to midnight, the temps were 37F (around kick-off, Kansas City time) to 32F at midnight. Most of the evening, it was 33-34F - if the men were going in and out of the back yard to smoke (for example), they would have experienced dropping temperatures - not as quickly as if it were 27F though. If they had alcohol on board, they may have perceived those temperatures as warmer (while their bodies' responses to alcohol would have caused them to be more quickly hypothermic). If they did sit in chairs, the lessened mobility would speed up the hypothermia.
Temps of below 32F can cause death by hypothermia in as little as 15 minutes (with each degree of temperature drop speeding that up). If it had really been 27F early AM on January 8, and they were using alcohol - 5-10 minutes would have been enough with major hypothermia symptoms coming on almost immediately (even if they didn't notice).
Q: Do people really freeze to death? A: Almost 1,000 Americans get hypothermic and die every year; although only in extreme circumstances does their body subsequently freeze. The very old, very young…
www.sj-r.com
The times given in that article are without alcohol. I just want to keep the variables straight in my mind.