Cold everywhere, but there's good news!!!

Just adding a sunny beach to help warm  you up on this cold morning!

We've made it to Thursday and when I look at the forecast, I see just one more true shot of some Arctic air before we can start looking ahead to a milder trend. That cold air will be here tomorrow (Friday)

Much of the country in the deep freeze

First, look at how much of the country is under some type of wind chill warning or advisory. Basically, it's the eastern 1/2 of the country as this latest surge of cold air goes all the way into the deep South. Get this... a wind chill advisory in Florida is issued when the wind chills drop below 35 degrees. It is very common for this sort of thing to happen in January when the jet stream is reaching it's peak strength. We will be in for another cold day on Friday with highs near 20, but then moving forward, it's not going to be as cold heading into next week.

The wind chill has been a big deal as of late. Several areas dropping to -10 or colder. How is the wind chill calculated? It's ugly, so if you don't like math, turn away now.
New Wind Chill T(wc) = 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75(V^0.16) + 0.4275T(V^0.16)

You probably don't have too much to worry about until wind chills start getting down to -15 or colder. At that point, frostbite can happen in 30 minutes or less. That's when advisories usually start coming out and we consider it dangerous.

But here is the good news. The pattern is looking to change in about a week.

Forecast temperatures for next Friday, January 16

Some of you have emailed me or asked on Facebook about cold weather and the longer range outlook. And I said the second half of January will likely start to warm back up. Here is the first sign. Next Thursday and into Friday especially, the bitter cold has retreated to the north and we could get back into the 40s and 50s heading into the weekend. The last 50 degree day was back on Christmas, and since then, we've been stuck in the colder pattern that we saw back in November. So hang in there. We have light at the end of the tunnel if you are not a cold weather fan.