A Cold Week... But Weekend Warming Not Necessarily Good News
by Cody Matz
January 24, 2013 7:56 PM
It doesn’t matter who you are, I think all of us can agree that it’s been a cold week. Although cold snaps are very common this time of year, it's still a shock to the system when they occur and a far cry different from what we enjoyed this time last week as highs were in the 40’s and 50’s. Thursday morning is just one example of how cold it has been, with peak wind chills 10 to 35 degrees below zero, which is surprisingly still warmer than what we had to endure on Monday. The good news is that temperatures will be on the rise as we get into the weekend with wind chills nowhere close to the levels we experienced on Thursday, however, it will not exactly be warm as the breezy conditions keep wind chills in the single digits and teens. But the warmer weather isn't always good news. As the temperatures begin to climb, a series of storms will be moving into the Midwest starting Sunday, and while the exact track of these storms is still unknown, it brings the potential for a wintry mix of precipitation across the region which could create some messy travel right into midweek.
Here is a look at the high and low temperatures from a few locations across the area over the last week. I’m sure a lot of us have forgotten that temperatures were that warm this past Saturday. The numbers you see for Friday is our current forecast.
Computer forecasting models have been going back and forth on the track of our next storm, which is possible by Sunday, with some saying it will move through our southeast, while others show the storm staying well to our south. This makes it extremely difficult to predict where its going to go. Below are images taken from two different computer-forecasting models that show a pretty different forecast for precipitation Sunday afternoon.
The first image shows the precipitation rolling through parts of the southeast. Granted, it wouldn’t be heavy if this is exactly what occurs, but with the potential for a wintry mix, it wouldn’t take much to make travel pretty treacherous. The second image though keeps the entire storm well to our south giving our area no precipitation at all. This has been happening for the last couple of days where some models bring it through South Dakota and some don’t, so we will have to watch this closely. But we may need to watch this even closer than we typically do because of the type of precipitation that could come along with this storm. With warmer air moving northward along with this storm, there could be some rain and freezing rain that comes along with it, and in some cases, quite a bit. Take a look at the forecast from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) that starts off by showing the probability of receiving at least one hundredth of an inch of freezing rain through the day Sunday followed by the probability of receiving at least a tenth of an inch of freezing rain.
At the moment, it looks like the chances for at least a small amount of freezing rain are pretty good… at the very least, some freezing drizzle. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but any amount of freezing rain is not good for travel, no matter how small. Stay tuned to KDLT and KDLT.com and we will keep you updated with the latest. For now though, just stay warm!
