Air mass transfusion as milder Pacific air eases in

It's amazing what a little shift in wind direction can do for the thermometer in Minnesota.

Temperatures at Lakeville:

• -20 degrees low temp at 7 am Tuesday morning

• 18 degrees air temperature at 7 am this morning

• +38 degrees temperature difference vs. 24 hour ago

Our well earned warming trend kicks into high gear in the next 24 hours across Minnesota.

Changing air masses: 

We trade arctic breezes for those of milder Pacific origin the next few days. Instead of a breeze from the Yukon, our winds blow in a milder oceanic air mass from Seattle and Portland across the Rockies into Minnesota and the Great Lakes.

Here's the surface map. A parade of fronts of Pacific origin means milder temps.

The warm spell peaks Saturday with temps in the mid to upper 30s across Minnesota. A blob of red across Minnesota suggests temps a good 10 to 15 degrees warmer than average.

The magnitude of the warming trend? The GFS suggests 3 days in the 30s before we back off slightly into the 20s by Sunday.

Most of next week looks seasonably mild with highs in the 20s. A brief arctic intrusion may nudge south next Thursday. Tuesday's snow chances look to be on the lighter side at this point.

The GFS continues to suggest a somewhat cooler shot of arctic-style air the last few days of January.

Super jet stream fuels super sonic trans-Atlantic flights

The jet stream over the North Atlantic has been howling in the past week.

A few days ago, a British Airways flight made the New York to London trip in a mere 5 hours 16 minutes.

Mashable's Andrew Freedman has a nice write up.

A jet stream roaring across the North Atlantic at more than 200 miles per hour early Thursday morning nearly succeeded in bringing back supersonic air travel for the New York to London route. Several flights from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport made the trip from there to London's Heathrow Airport (from gate to gate) in about five hours and 20 minutes.

British Airways Flight 114, a Boeing 777-200 jet, took off from JFK at 10:50 p.m. ET, and landed at 9:06 a.m. local time, taking just five hours 16 minutes to make a trip that typically takes more than six hours.

At one point, according to Flight Aware, the jet was traveling at a groundspeed, which is the speed at which the plane is traveling relative to ground level, of 745 miles per hour. For comparison, the speed of sound at sea level is 761 miles per hour.

Winter art: Artist creates intricate snow designs on frozen lake

Call it the winter version of crop circles. Check out the amazingly executed designs of snow artist Sonja Hinrichsen and over 60 volunteers created by trekking out onto frozen Catamount Lake in Colorado.

Could Minnesota be next on her lake snow art trekking list?