Historic cold, windy weather coming our way
Monday evening weather headlines:
Alberta clipper laid down a fresh blanket of snow to radiate heat to space
Dangerously cold and sometimes windy weather is coming our way Tuesday through Thursday
Twin Cities temperatures will be our coldest in 23 years; record lows are possible
Saturday will feel balmy
Now let's dig a little deeper
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Snowfall Sunday night into Monday brought reports of mostly 4 to 6 inches of snow around the area, with some reports of more or less. MSP airport measured 4.9 inches while Carver got 5.3 inches. Outside the metro area, Mankato and Owatonna reported around 7 inches.
Light snow will continue in parts of Wisconsin this evening while a weak cold front brings seriously-colder arctic air our way.
Low temperatures Monday night should range from around 10 below in the south to about 30 below in the north. Wind chills are likely to range from -25 to -35 in central and southern Minnesota while the north should see a range from -45 to -60.
Wind chill advisories are posted for all of Minnesota for Monday night and will be upgraded to more-dangerous wind chill warnings from north to south Monday night and on Tuesday.
The wind chill warnings will remain in effect into Thursday morning.
Deteriorating conditions on Tuesday
Tuesday will bring subzero high temps. Increasing northwest winds with gusts exceeding 30 mph will cause blowing snow but also falling temperatures and dropping wind chills by afternoon.
The worst upcoming conditions
The worst, most-dangerous wind chill conditions will occur from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. Expect widespread wind chills of -45 to -65 Wednesday morning.
Actual low temperatures Wednesday and Thursday morning should range from 25 below to around 40 below. Lows down to around 30 below seem likely for the Twin Cities and even as far south as the southernmost Minnesota counties.
For the Twin Cities and probably much of the southern half of the state Wednesday and Thursday mornings will be our coldest temperatures in 23 years.
Record temperatures on tap?
Existing record lows of 30 below on Wednesday and 27 below on Thursday in the Twin Cities are in definite jeopardy, especially on Thursday. It is interesting to note that the Twin Cities have not experienced a record low January temperature since 1977. Meanwhile, there have been 13 dates in January that set high temperature records since that year.
Saturday slush
A rapid warmup could easily push Twin Cities area temperatures into the mid or upper 30s on Saturday.
Stay warm this week. Cocoa helps.