Cold Morning....Warm Up Coming!

It was an extremely cold morning for most areas with temperatures dropping to 20 or more degrees below zero. Now records were not broken but in a typical Winter season, temperatures may drop this low once or twice. So I'm sure it was a shock to every one's system.

Good news though as some warmer air is headed our direction. The question remains though.... just how warm will we get. I talk about this a lot but this time of year, mixing is the most important aspect of reaching potential high temperatures and warming up the surface. With a pretty thick blanket of snow on the ground that can be 10 or 20 degrees, it takes A LOT to get the surface temperatures above freezing. During the winter season, the cold air at the surface is extremely dense. Remember that cold air is always more dense then warm air, so warm air will rise and cold air will sink. Well, as you are well aware, the surface gets awfully cold. But in order for the temperatures to warm this time of year, you will have to mix the surface air with air one, two, or even three thousand feet into the atmosphere. Going back to the density of air, you will not get warm air to arrive right at the surface because remember, its going to rise. So, you have to raise the air temperature of the atmosphere right above the surface and mix the warmer air down.

Taking this process into account, it becomes very difficult deciphering exactly how much warming will take place in the atmosphere and how much of that warm air will make its way to the surface. It becomes much easier to figure that out if there is a good stiff wind in the lowest several thousand feet. But, if the winds are relatively calm, like we are expecting them to be the next couple of days, then it basically becomes a crap shoot.

The following images are expected temperatures and winds speeds the next couple of afternoons a few thousand feet off the ground.

Notice that the air temperatures are near or above freezing at that level (the warm air above the surface that i was talking about earlier). But notice the wind barbs; in many cases they are under 10 mph which is not a good sign if you want the surface to warm up. It does look like that the temperatures will warm a bit the next couple of days. But the difference between good and bad mixing could mean the difference between hitting 20 and hitting 40.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz