- Feb 2, 2020

BRIEF FEBRUARY THAW...

The sun finally came out Saturday as warmer air moved into the area. Temperatures warmed above freezing and for my local area it was the warmest day we've had since January 9th! Right now we've got a big area of high pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere, which will be with us through Monday.

This type of warm air would typically lead to 50s this time of year. However, due to the snow on the ground a lot of that energy is getting reflected back to the atmosphere (what's known as the 'albedo' effect). Some of the snow did start to melt away Saturday and more will melt Sunday with these temperatures and sunshine...

You can see a clear difference in the temperatures where the snowpack is versus little to no snow on the ground. Not all of that snow will melt away and in fact we could be adding more to it next week. First of all, you can see the change in the upper levels by Wednesday into Thursday.

Colder air will settle into place and there will be a few systems that move through the Midwest. There is uncertainty in the track of these systems, but the trends places parts of Illinois and Iowa in the zone for snow.

Here's a look at the first system late Tuesday into Wednesday: