The winter of 2013-14 continues to impress with all three meteorological months providing abundant cold and snow across a large swath of the US. There’s currently 64% of the country beneath snow cover and with another plunge of frigid air in the wake of the latest storm system, the coldest temperature of winter thus far dove into Montana yesterday morning. How cold? Try -50 at Elk Park to the north of Butte. That was the coldest Montana-wide temperature since -51 was recorded at West Yellowstone back in January 2007. Wisdom hit -48 yesterday while West Yellowstone dipped to -47. The -34 low at Great Falls was in fact the coldest since Feb 2, 1996.

Thanks to a Canada to Texas snowpack, arctic covered the Rockies and Plains where it fell into the -10s, -20s throughout Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, even below 0 in Oklahoma with 2 all the way to Amarillo, Texas.

Here’s the current US snow cover. Currently 67.4% which is the most thus far this season and according to storm chaser Johnny Kelly

TOP IMAGE: Courtesy of Ralph Fato @WeatherNut27

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The prolonged cold of this winter has really iced up the Great Lakes, in fact the coverage of ice has significantly increased in just the last 2 weeks. I believe it’s increased by 10% and that’s a lot given that your combining all 5 lakes.

Currently we have 79.6% coverage across the Lakes with Superior setting a new record with 92% ice cover as of February 2nd, the old record was 91%.

38 Nights Below Zero, Most Since Winter Of 95-96!

It’s been a long winter for the folks of Minneapolis and throughout the Upper Midwest. Stats from the Twin Cities NWS show that Minneapolis has now seen 38 nights below 0 as of this morning and that’s the most since the winter of 1995-96. It’s also nearing the top 10 list for most below zero nights and to get there, we must see more than 42 nights and with another 4 likely in the upcoming 7 nights then there’s a pretty decent shot given that we have most of February and all of March still to go.

Coldest Winter In Chicago For 30 Years!

As for Chicago, according to WGN-TV’s Tom Skilling, there have been 22 nights below zero thus far and that’s 3 times the normal amount for an entire winter. Since meteorological winter began back on December 1, Chicago’s average temperature has been just 18.5 degrees and that’s an impressive 7.6 below normal which makes this winter the coldest in 30 years and 7th coldest in 143 years of record keeping.

With an impressive 59.6 inches of snow down, this winter also ranks 3rd most snowy in 129 years.

Foot Of Rain To Fall Over Northern California In Next 7 Days!

It’s great to see the large scale pattern shift with moisture now finally making it into California. In fact we may be looking at a complete turnaround as the long fetched stream of moisture known as the pineapple express gets flowing over the Pacific and takes aim at northern California, acting like a hose over the next 2-5 days. Several inches of rain is expected fall from the Bay Area northwards. Some rain will make it into central and southern California but not as much as further north. It’s thanks to a southward shift in the storm track as troughiness returns to Alaska following a dominant ridge pattern.

Just look at the expected rainfall in the next 7 days according to the QPF model.

Check out this latest infrared imagery showing moisture over California right now but cast your eyes west out into the Pacific and note the large clump of light level clouds indicating a storm system, that’s the next system that will bring a decent soaking in the coming days.

No Phasing And Thus No Big East Coast Snowstorm This Weekend!

The northern and southern disturbances that are crossing the country were expected to phase and bring a bigtime snowstorm to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic but modelling has now backed away from that idea and therefore we’re going to see a smaller snow event.

Here’s the latest snow forecasts off the ECMWF and GFS through this weekend.

ECM

GFS

Bigger Snowstorm Chance Next Week?

While we could see 1-3″ from Baltimore to Boston Monday and Tuesday next week, a greater snowstorm chance appears to be on the charts for later next week and quite far south too!

ECMWF 168 hr

Warm Up Anytime Soon?

Here’s the  CFSv2 next 4 weeks, hating this constant cold/snow? You’ll like this then..

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Tags: arctic blast, coldwave, great lakes ice, snowstorm, US snow, us snowstorm