New Year’s chill; 2014 is state’s coldest in 18 years

Happy New Year 2015

Somehow it looks good even in typeface. The numbers 2015 just look impressive. A year of hope? Prosperity? A weather year to be reckoned with? Another "warmest year on record globally?"

Place your bets and make your final resolutions for 2015.

As we celebrate (endure?) the final hours of 2014 you can tell the grand kids about Minnesota's big chill this year. Congratulations! You've just survived the coldest year in Minnesota in 18 years. This has indeed been the coldest year statewide since 1996.

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Yes, the last time it was this cold in Minnesota the Macarena was #1, The X-Files was a big TV hit and Minnesota was without a professional hockey team.

Top weather stories of 2014

Of course we remember the Polar Vortex grabbed headlines last winter. We also endured a monsoonal June with record flooding and lake levels, and water gushing into many homes that had never seen flooding before.

Here's your obligatory year end wrap on the top 5 Minnesota weather stories of 2014 from the excellent Minnesota State Climatology Office.

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Minnesota Climate Working Group

Arctic chill eases

Temps recover into the teens today, but a stiff breeze keeps a biting wind chill. Temps moderate into the 20s tomorrow through Saturday. New Year's Day brings a dusting of snow flurries, then a better chance for some light accumulating snow arrives by sundown Saturday.

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Weatherspark

Northern Minnesota still looks ripe for plowable snow Saturday night. This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Forecast System model output may be overdone, but you get the idea. It looks like a snowy Saturday up north.

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NOAA GFS 120 hour snowfall output via wxcaster.com

Arctic reinforcements arrive Sunday

The next arctic front sails south into Minnesota Saturday night. Temps may not climb above zero Sunday, and next week's arctic invasion looks even colder than this week's appetizer. We bottomed out at minus 7 this morning at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with today's arctic air mass. I can see temps easily hitting minus 10 to minus 12 degrees in the metro next week.

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Weatherspark

The longer range pattern shows big differences among models. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts hints at milder temps late next week. The GFS thinks not.

Here's a look at the longer range GFS output from IPS Meteostar.

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NOAA GFS data via IPS Meteostar

Temps of minus 22 are awfully ambitious for the Twin Cities these days, and the GFS has a way of overdoing the magnitude of arctic outbreak more than 10 days out. Still, the numbers are attention getting, and may signal the season's coldest air in about two weeks.

Stay tuned.

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Gophers win the Weather Bowl

Finally some (much) warmer thoughts to send your way. Temps at kickoff near 70 degrees for the Citrus Bowl in Orlando tomorrow? Highs in the 80s this weekend?

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NWS Melbourne, Florida

Nice.