Arctic attack to start the week, another to finish and it may come with snow
A cold weekend is in the books. The weekend started with an arctic attack that generated snow flurries and kept highs below freezing Saturday. The cold relaxed a little Sunday, but this was after beginning the day with single-digit lows.
Another arctic attack is already sweeping in from the north, and it will make for another frigid MLK Day. I say another because this will be the third year in a row where frigid temperatures coincided with MLK Day. Last year, the high was only 22° on MLK Day, and the year before was even worse. It was the coldest MLK Day on record with a morning low of -4° and an afternoon high of 10°.
This year will almost be mild by comparison, but it will still be dangerously cold. The arctic front will arrive overnight with gusty winds and some clouds. A few snow flurries are also possible. Clouds will thicken up some Monday morning, making for mainly cloudy skies for the first half of the day. This will come with breezy northwest winds that will drive wind chills down into the single digits. Temperatures will be in the teens, warming into the 20s during the afternoon as clouds gradually thin out from north to south.
Temperatures will quickly tumble Monday evening, dropping into the teens again. Southwest winds will kick in overnight and will start to push the frigid air mass out. This will open the door for highs in the 40s Tuesday.
The mid-week warmup will continue through Wednesday and Thursday. It will still be a chilly pattern, but we’ll have sun and afternoon highs well above freezing.
All of that changes as the Arctic unleashes another blast of frigid air into the country by the end of the week. The cold air should arrive Friday, laying a foundation of cold air ahead of some unsettled weather coming out of the Southwest. This is the type of pattern that can generate accumulating snow along with frigid temperatures.
The window for snow appears to be later in the day Friday or Friday evening through the first half of the weekend. Very cold air will come with the snow, and we could be looking at a multi-day stretch of temperatures remaining well below freezing. These also could be the coldest temperatures of the winter season so far.
Sunshine will return on Sunday. The cold should relax after the weekend, but the pattern will remain primed to deliver additional bouts of frigid weather before the end of the month.
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