(Area) The first week of February brought bitter cold to the state and it may not be exiting anytime soon.
The polar jet is south of us, allowing arctic air to intrude into the Midwest. State Climatologist Justin Glisan wouldn’t rule out the possibility of some records being set in the coming days. “We might break some daily records which happens every so often when you get these cold air outbreaks. Depending on how cold it gets is a function of the amount of cloud cover we have along with snow pack. If we have snow on the ground it will reflect more solar radiation into the atmosphere and we can cool down. In the presence of clouds and wind it might not get as cold as the forecast says.”
Temps are rarely expected to climb above single digits in the week ahead. “Unfortunately if you look at the short term outlook getting us past the middle of February we still see what we call the big blue bullseye and that’s high probabilities of colder than average temperatures.”
Even after the frigid conditions move on, temperatures are expected to stay below normal for the month of February.
