WINTER IS COMIN' BACK...

After two back to back 50 degree days in my local area, temperatures are beginning to get back to normal. Cold air moved back into the Midwest for Sunday.

Monday is going to be another cool day with temperatures near and even slightly below normal -

There will be some temperature fluctuations this week with a ridge moving back in on Tuesday.

A storm will move through Canada late in the week and will drag down arctic air to start the month of February. This will begin a more wintry and more active pattern. Take a look at the next 15 days on the GEFS (long range GFS ensemble) in Cedar Rapids to see the temperature trend:

Not overly cold, but definitely a big difference when you compare it to the temperatures of the last week. Temperature departures of 10 to nearly 20 degrees were pretty common across the Midwest:

Temperatures aren't going to be overly cold or far below normal, but it will be much colder and support wintry precipitation with any storms that will come through. Now there is a lot of uncertainty right now in terms of the strength and path of any systems that will move through over the next week. I did want to point out that many of us are behind on snowfall.

These are the snowfall departures as of Thursday. We still have plenty of winter to go and time to make up for it. Over the next five days at least.. not a big prospect for snow.

There will likely be more snow on the board next week!

RK