Snow Cover

Lots of snow has now fallen across many parts of the country with the large Christmas storm and several others. This can have large effects on our climate. The more snow that's on the ground in the U.S., the more shortwave radiation is reflected into the atmosphere, therefore, temperatures are typically colder then normal for much of the country. The large snow mass can also lead to stronger and longer cold weather outbreaks because the snow acts like a refrigerator and keeps the atmosphere quite cold. This looks like it will be a reality soon as some arctic air will work its way into the area by New Years Eve. But look at the massive amounts of snow across the state and across the country.

State Snow cover:

U.S. Snow Cover:
Hopefully we can melt some of this snow before Spring or we will likely have to deal with a pretty large Spring flood.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz