Snow on the way with the cold to stay

Cody talked quite a bit about the snow and wind chill that we'll be seeing with this next system but besides the snow and the winds we'll have Wednesday through Thursday, we're going to be seeing just cold temperatures in general. Here's a look at where temperatures are going to be on Thursday just a little higher up in the atmosphere (at 850 millibars): Now those deep red-maroon colors are temperatures 22 to 24 below zero, but you see all those purples and pinks and blues are all showing this cold pocket of air and how wide this cold weather is spread across the country. Although, we are in the heart of the coldest of this air, it makes me chuckle a little bit hearing all the national stories about how 11 degree wind chill is cold - I don't even remember what 11 degrees feels like right now, much less temperatures in the 20s, which is where we're supposed to be this time of year.

While we can handle this cold arctic air (even though we don't like it) but folks down south are not handling this frigid blast very well at all. Strawberry, orange and tomato farmers are actually freezing their crops in a cocoon of ice to prevent a total loss of their crops. The theory is that watering the plants to have the water freeze will put a layer of ice around the crops. With the layer of ice completely surrounding the fruit, the temperature inside that ice case stays around 32 degrees as long as the water keeps flowing on the outside until things warm up.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month estimated Florida’s orange crop will be 0.7 percent smaller than earlier forecast because adverse weather reduced fruit size.

Everyone's dealing with this frigid forecast, so if anything is good about this forecast, it's that we're not alone.

Stay warm!
~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka