A Little Relief From the Cold

Temperatures were near average earlier this afternoon, hitting a high of 37°, but it felt much colder because of those winds that we had to deal with today.  We even had some light snow move through the Stateline during the afternoon, with accumulations being minimal.  There's some light snow moving through the eastern portion of our viewing area, but that'll die down by around 9pm.  We may see some lingering flurries afterwards, but we should stay mostly dry.

As we go through the night clouds will start to break up around midnight, clearing out during the overnight.  This will cause our temperatures to drop quickly, and we'll be cooling down to around 15° tonight.  Winds will start dying down around midnight, but wind chills will still be in the single digits overnight as our regular temperatures will stay cold.

We've seen a decent amount of snow in a short period of time, our total accumulation since Friday being at 1.5 inches, most of which fell on Monday.  The reason we've been seeing multiple periods of snowfall is because of Alberta Clippers.  These are low pressure systems that travel from Canada, hence the name.  This occurs when the jet stream peaks far north of the western U.S, with a trough over the eastern U.S.  This forms a pathway for lows to travel through our area, and this is what happened on Friday and Monday, and even today.

The clipper that we're dealing with now is what will cool us down into the teens tonight, and only allow for highs to peak in the mid 20's Thursday afternoon.  However, we do have another clipper system that'll be moving through, but it won't be like the others.




Once this clipper system moves in, it'll bring a weak cold front through our area.  It's expected to come through dry, so snowfall chances will be minimal.  Notice the winds Friday evening are out of the south.  This will help our temperatures warm up, and since the cold front is weak, it won't do much to change our temperatures.  With that warm air taking over, we'll see the upper 30's Saturday afternoon, even chances for seeing 40°.  We haven't seen 40° since December 5th.

After Saturday, temperatures will stay around average (mid 30's) until the middle of next week, when temperatures are looking to drop back into the 20's.