Snow Day!

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The governor has announced schools closing statewide here on Monday due to the extreme cold.  This is the first time since January 1997 that the governor has called school off statewide.

They keep lowering the overnight lows... I think -40F will be widespread.  But I think the major issue is just how cold it will be during the day Monday with most of the state not reaching above -10F, which is rare.

As the Arctic front moves through today, we're expecting an inch or two of snow with strong winds and plummeting temperatures, which could lead to windchills of -40 to -60F, making any travel or activity outdoors extremely dangerous.

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We've had a day with a high of -16F and two with highs of -14F.  That's the coldest since 1996 (which had a high of -24F after -50F that morning!!).

Schools here were closed today and are again tomorrow because of the dangerous windchills and cold temps.  WInd chills were down to -50F.

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The polar vortex was interrupted by a sudden stratospheric warming event.  This caused the vortex to completely split with one "daughter" vortex over central Canada and another over southern parts of Siberia.

This means all the cold has been displaced further south than usual while the high Arctic remains warm.



Somebody just did a paper on Watts Up With That (Climate change skeptic website) about the effects of a split polar vortex and predicted warmth for the eastern U.S. with the cold focused most on Eurasia with less over western Canada and the western U.S.  And that appears to be what will happen in the next week.

But then it could all come crashing down again for the east as far as the latest model runs are concerned as the early January pattern looks to reset with a ridge just off either U.S. coast with lots of cold in between covering the land.

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Here's the northern hemisphere temperature anomalies for the winter so far (December 1st to February 11th, the latest date available)

You can see Minnesota has had a rough one... averaging more than 7*F below normal (9-10F below normal here).

Meanwhile Alaska has had a very mild winter.  



And one last one for those in the southern hemisphere:

Summer has been quite hot in southern Australia and in the subtropical areas of South America but has been chilly in Patagonia and in much of the ocean surrounding Antarctica, which has had record high ice cover.

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Does that mean we are due for MORE cold in a few weeks??

It's hard to say.  Obviously by the time we're out 2 weeks we'll be late enough that another winter storm in the southeast is unlikely.  Also, it appears the Southeast Ridge might be in place to keep Florida and the coastal arc from North Carolina to Alabama warm while the cold dives straight down into Texas.

This would be a bad situation for the Ohio Valley since the cold air likes to stab into the southeast ridge at the surface, leading to a shallow layer of cold that encourages freezing rain.

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Yesterday and today have been really nice with temperatuers near 40F!

The cold is coming back though and with a vengeance and because the Great Lakes are so frozen it will likely delay spring.  The ice cover on Lake Superior will have big consequences since the ice won't clear out until late spring and it will seriously reduce the time for the water to absorb the sun's heat.

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We easily set some new record low temperatures.  Yesterday morning was 2F, beating the old record of 14F set in 1961.  Today areas south of here are due for a foot or more of snow.

But we should see 60s by Monday.