February 8, 2018

A Very Steamy Morning

Current Conditions

Temperature: 14 degrees, feels like 7 degrees
Dew Point: -2 degrees
Winds: W 4 mph
Pressure: 1028.4 mb
Visibility: 10 miles

This morning was once again a chilly one starting out with a temperature of -2 degrees and WSW 5 mph winds that made it feel like -13.  The sun was out though and due to the cold temperatures, all the water evaporating off of the Chippewa River was condensing right away into water droplets (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Evaporated water from the Chippewa River condensing in the air due to cold temperatures.

The rest of the day was sunny with temperatures peaking at 14 degrees at noon with winds WSW at 7 mph making it feel like 3 degrees.  The dew point today was -2 degrees, which is fairly distant from the temperature and indicates the air is very dry right now. The dew point is the temperature at which water begins to condense in the air. 

Currently there is another winter storm moving through called Mateo.  Figure 2 shows the path that the winter storm is taking.

Figure 2. Winter weather announcement of the National Weather Service showing the path of winter storm Mateo.

Interestingly, this winter storm is following the path of the jet stream that passing through the Midwest from Canada (Figure 3).

Figure 1. This is from earth.nullschool.net and shows the winds of the jet stream moving through the United States from Canada.

My prediction from yesterday was correct, temperatures got into the teens with light winds and there was not precipitation of any sort. 

For tomorrow, I predict a possibility of a light dusting of snow due to the winter storm moving through the area with the low pressure front.  There could also be some partly sunny skies and temperatures much like today.