You only have to look at the warmth of yesterday whiched extended from the Desert Southwest to Ohio Valley and compare it to today over the Midwest to appreciate how impressive this turnaround has been. From Minneapolis to Wichita to St Louis to Chicago, it’s like going from early spring/fall to December in a day.

We had an interesting setup yesterday to create such as turnaround. While there was a southward advancing pool of arctic air, a bubble of warmth resided over the Southwest, the combination of ridging and powerful southwest winds allowed warmth to spread across the country.

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A storm system positioned north of Lake Superior, while sweeping a warm front northeastwards, pulling 15-25° above normal air all the way up to the Great Lakes, a strong arctic front was driopping through the Dakotas bringing leading edge and backside snows and falling temperatures, 10-20° below normal.

Highs rose widely into the 70s across the central Plains and even as far north and east as Iowa while 60s made it all the way to Minneapolis-St Paul and Chicago. The MSP high of 60° was a record for the day while CHI’s 63°, made for the 3rd warmest Thanksgiving Day on record. At the same time records for warmth were being broken, temperatures during the afternoon were falling through the teens with near or below zero wind chills.

What for me is most impressive is the drop from yesterday’s high through the overnight into this morning across the very areas which were so warm. The cold front slide through both Minneapolis and Chicago and this not only dropped temperatures from the 60s to 20s before midnight and 60s to freezing before dawn in Chicago, but this cold was accompanied by snow which in fact accummulated in Minneapolis.

By mid morning, Chicago managed to dip into the 20s while Minneapolis fell to an impressive 18°. Wind chills hovered at a biting 3° while it hit 17° in Chicago. Up in Northern Minnesota this morning, temperatures in some spots were in the single digits with snow and wind. For parts of northern North Dakota it was clear, breezy with an air temperature just below zero, WC’s considerably colder.

Check out these current readings as of late afternoon. These are December level numbers.

With the arctic air firmly in place, clear skies and light winds tonight will make way for the coldest night of the season so far. These numbers below are likely too warm for both Minneapolis and Chicago. I’m going for 14° and 19° conservatively.

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