Wind Chill Advisory This Weekend With Frigid Weather Through Next Week

Old man winter has decided to finally arrive after a fairly warm winter across the upper Midwest so far. A Wind Chill Advisory is in place for the Twin Cities metro from 3 AM Saturday through Noon Sunday for wind chill values as low as -34F. Up toward St. Cloud and other areas of central Minnesota, the Wind Chill Advisory is in place from Midnight Friday Night through Noon Tuesday for wind chills to -40F. In the Duluth area, the Wind Chill Advisory goes from 6 PM Friday Night through Noon Tuesday for wind chills to -40F. Up in northwestern Minnesota, Wind Chill Warnings are in place from 6 PM Friday Night through Noon Tuesday for wind chills to -50F.

Through at least next Tuesday morning, wind chill values are expected to be in the -20s in the metro, with -30s as close as the St. Cloud area. Up in parts of northern Minnesota, particularly Sunday through Tuesday mornings, wind chills will be in the -40s. The coldest wind chill over this period for Roseau is expected to be Sunday morning.

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Did you think Friday was cold? Well, just wait for the next several days! We're going to start off below zero Saturday morning and temperatures aren't going to budge too much throughout the day. However, it should be enough to get us slightly above zero for the high during the afternoon. We'll see partly sunny skies throughout the day.

Winds will stay strong throughout the day out of the northwest at 10-15 mph sustained, gusting up to 20 mph. With those winds, it'll feel even cooler out, with morning wind chills bottoming out around -22F. However, it won't feel much better as we go throughout the day.

Highs in far northern Minnesota Saturday may not make it out of the teens below zero, with highs in southern Minnesota barely making it a few degrees above zero. We'll see partly to mostly sunny skies across the state as we watch some snow move to our south.

And we are going to remain in the Arctic freezer the next several days, with the coldest day through the middle of next week being either Sunday (across central/southern Minnesota) or Monday (in northern areas). Lows both Sunday and Monday morning could easily make it down into the -30s across northwestern portions of the state. While not shown here, this cold stretch does look to continue into at least portions of next weekend.

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If we do stay below zero all day on Sunday, it'll be the first time in just over two years at MSP. The last time we saw a subzero high was back on January 31st, 2019, when the high only made it to -3F. If you expand that out to include 0F or below, the last time was back on March 3, 2019, with a high of 0F.

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No Physical Distancing From Old Man Winter
By Paul Douglas

Pioneer jokes: "It got so cold we opened the fridge to heat the house. It's so cold I ate fast food just for the heartburn." I know you can do better.

The arctic is warming nearly 3 times faster than the rest of the planet, destabilizing the jet stream, the river of fast-flowing air that swirls around the North Pole. The end result some winters: a wavier, loopier river of air. One such blob of polar air will dominate our weather into mid-February.

The much-hyped "Polar Vortex" passes almost directly overhead next weekend, when metro lows may dip to -20F. It'll be too cold for significant snow, but the arrival of battery-draining air may set off a few inches of fluff next Thursday.

Before pondering a sudden move to Cuba consider this: a thaw may return the third week of February. Woohoo!

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Paul's Extended Twin Cities Forecast

SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy, happily numb. Wake up -14. High -1. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind NW 5-10 mph.

MONDAY: More sunshine, still nippy. Wake up -10. High 3. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind W 3-8 mph.

TUESDAY: Intervals of sun, few flurries. Wake up -6. High 5. Chance of precipitation 30%. Wind W 8-13 mph.

WEDNESDAY: Patchy clouds. Hope the car starts. Wake up -9. High 8. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind W 5-10 mph.

THURSDAY: Few inches of powdery snow? Wake up 1. High 10. Chance of precipitation 70%. Wind NE 8-13 mph.

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This Day in Weather History
February 6th

1994: The national low is at Tower, dropping down to -41.

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Average Temperatures & Precipitation for Minneapolis
February 6th

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Sunrise/Sunset Times for Minneapolis
February 6th

Sunrise: 7:26 AM
Sunset: 5:28 PM

*Length Of Day: 10 hours, 2 minutes and 34 seconds
*Daylight GAINED Since Yesterday: ~2 minutes and 44 seconds

*When Do We Climb To 10.5 Hours Of Daylight? February 16th (10 hours, 31 minutes, and 11 seconds)
*When Is The Sunrise At/Before 7:00 AM?: February 23rd (7:00 AM)
*When Is The Sunset At/After 5:30 PM? February 7th (5:30 PM)

We will be watching a few areas of snow as we head through Saturday. One will be moving from the central Plains into the Ohio River Valley, with another one impacting the northern Rockies. Lake effect snow will also impact areas downwind of the Great Lakes. Showers and thunderstorms will be possible in the Southeast, with rain and snow in the Northwest.

Several feet of snow is expected to pile up in portions of the Northern and Central Rockies through the weekend. A foot to a foot and a half of snow will be possible in areas downwind of the Great Lakes, with about 6" possible across central Nebraska. At least an inch of rain could fall from Florida to coastal areas of the Mid-Atlantic.

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How COVID-19 Ended Flu Season Before It Started

More from FiveThirtyEight: "In the third week of 2021, clinical laboratories nationwide tested 23,549 specimens for influenza. Of those, just 0.3 percent (65 tests) turned up positive — a number that is, to put it mildly, absolutely wild. "Normally, this time of year, we'd be running 20 to 30 percent positive," said Lynnette Brammer, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Domestic Influenza Surveillance team. Although the U.S. continues to struggle with COVID-19, it has apparently beaten the flu into submission. Since the end of September, the combined total of positive flu cases identified by both public health and clinical labs is fewer than 1,500. There are high schools with more people in them. The phenomenon is not only in the United States — worldwide, rates of influenza are nearly off-the-charts low. When you line multiple years up on the same graph, it can even look like there are no cases of flu this year. That's how out of step we are with the norm."

More from LiveScience: "Scientists are finally figuring out how much dark matter — the almost imperceptible material said to tug on everything, yet emit no light — really weighs. The new estimate helps pin down how heavy its particles could be — with implications for what the mysterious stuff actually is. The research sharply narrows the potential mass of dark matter particles, from between an estimated 10^minus 24 electronvolts (eV) and 10^19 Gigaelectron volts (GeV) , to between 10^minus 3 eV and 10^7eV — a possible range of masses many trillions of trillions of times smaller than before."

Science suggests possible climate link to Covid-19

More from Climate News Network: "British and US scientists think there may be a connection between global heating driven by profligate fossil fuel use, and the emergence of the bat-borne virus that has triggered a global pandemic and has so far claimed more than two million lives worldwide − in short, a possible climate link to Covid-19. The connection is possibly quite simple. Rising average temperatures encouraged a change in the natural vegetation of the forests of Yunnan, the southern Chinese province, close to the forests of Laos and Myanmar."

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Thanks for checking in and have a great day! Don't forget to follow me on Twitter (@dkayserwx) and like me on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser).