WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER....

The consistent message in the weather models again today is that the next 7 days are going to be (for lack of a better word) hell! Bouts of bitter cold, wind, and snow will ravage the Midwest. When it's all said and done, this could be one of those epic periods when you look back in 20 years and say, yea...I remember that.

Just take a look at the EURO meteogram for Cedar Rapids. It has 8 consecutive days with lows below zero. It actually shows a reading of 39 below January 31st. Throw that out. I don't see us getting close to that but 25 to 30 below is a real possibility under the right radiational conditions. The all-time record low in Cedar Rapids is 29 below. We could give it a run.

Here's some breaking news, the 0z GFS just came in with a low of 32 below in Cedar Rapids!

The wind chill is 61 below zero. That is beyond belief. Honestly, I mean that. It's literally so extreme I would only believe it when I saw it. Take a good 15 degrees off that number. More reasonable but still extreme.

What could really make this stretch of weather extra special is a robust clipper that is shown dropping a band of heavy snow as it zips southeast Sunday night and Monday. The system is projected to have a 50 kt low level jet which over-runs a stout thermal boundary. This should provide vigorous lift and a heavy snow band of 6-10" northeast of the surface reflection. There's still doubt as to the precise track but the EURO and Canadian models have been consistent sending the surface low towards southeast Iowa. That would put the northern 2/3rds of my area (I-80 north) in the cross-hairs of the heaviest snow.

The U.S. models have been bouncing around and at last check were a tad bit further north on the track. With the system still 3 days away they could be right but I am leaning towards the slightly more southerly position of the EURO. Honestly, there's pretty good consistency for 72 hours out. Here's the snowfall forecasts that I can offer you as of late Thursday evening.

The EURO

The regional perspective of the EURO

The GFS

The GEM (Canadian)

By the way, if you are in search of spring it does not look like it's coming early. The EURO weeklies have this for 46 day mean temperature anomalies ending March 11th

The snowfall anomalies for the same period.

Be strong, we'll get through this. After all, we have each other! Roll weather...TS