A Quick Dip into Winter

Oh noes an outbreak of winter! First, there may be a snow shower or two this morning. Any chance of snow won't last long as the cloud cover should thin out as the day evolves. Next up: cold. Our high temperature of 37 for the day is but a distant memory as it was reached at midnight. We can expect the mercury to stay around 30 degrees for the remainder of the daylight hours before dropping into the 20s this evening. Tomorrow morning will see temperatures in the mid-teens. Mid-teens! That hasn't happened here since early March.

On top of the coldest weather we've seen all year it is going to be windy through tomorrow. The old saw about nature abhorring a vaccuum is true. Air is rushing from the big high pressure system centered over Kansas toward yesterday's rainmaker, a low that's currently over the Canadian Maritimes. North winds at 15-20 miles an hour should blow until tomorrow evening. Wind chills today will be around 20 degrees but tonight and tomorrow it will feel closer to zero outside. Remember, wind chill is the cooling effect of wind on exposed skin. Cover yourself up and the wind chill goes away. Oh, if you want to calculate the wind chill yourself, plug this equation into your TI-30: Wind chill temp = 35.74 + 0.6125T - 35.75V(**0.16) + 0.4275TV(**0.16), where T = temperature in Fahrenheit, and V = wind speed in statute miles per hour. You'll be the envy of all the geeky boys and girls.

Normal, winter-like weather will be gone in a flash. Friday will warm to the mid-30s, and temperatures should be back to normal on Saturday and into the 50s again by next week. There's little chance of precipitation throughout that period.

Today's wind chills across the country from weather.com.