First cold weather advisory of the season has been issued!

 

Updated 5:00 PM December 11th

The National Weather Service has issued the first cold weather advisory for portions of the area.  This advisory replaces the windchill advisory.  All of our counties are under the advisory except Walworth, Racine, and Kenosha.

The takeaway here is dangerous cold.  Arctic air and strong winds will drop wind chills to -20 for Thursday morning.  Frostbite on exposed skin can occur in as little as 30 minutes.  Please limit your time outdoors.  The advisory will expire at 10 am.

Windchills will remain subzero throughout your Thursday.

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Since we had three days in a row in the 50s, temperatures have been steadily falling the last few days. High temperatures Wednesday will hang out in the upper 20s to around 30. We have one very, very cold day on the way Thursday with highs in the teens then warming right back to 30 for Friday and into the 40s this weekend.

The wind will pick up Wednesday from 10-20 mph. The strongest wind arrives after the cold front passes through with gusts as high as 30 or 35 mph Wednesday night. The breeze will linger through Thursday.

Wind chills will be close to average numbers Wednesday morning in the teens to around 20 then drop fairly quickly. By the time kids are getting out of school Wednesday afternoon wind chills will already be in the single digits above-zero.

If you have any evening plans Wednesday wind chills will already drop below-zero.

Wind chills will bottom out in the teens to around -20 Thursday morning then stay below-zero or around zero through Thursday afternoon. The wind will be pretty light Friday morning but when it does blow, wind chills will hang out around or just below-zero. While it's going to be cold, a cold weather advisory (which used to be called a wind chill advisory) does not look likely. The threshold for that is usually colder than -20. 

Just ahead of the artic front a few snow showers will be possible Wednesday from 11 AM to 4 PM. Some parts of Dodge County or even Washington and Waukesha County may have seen some accumulating snow from a power plant on Portage Tuesday night, but that's not associated with the light snow we get with the cold front.

The midday snow showers don't look as widespread as they once did but a few isolated snow showers are possible and if they do form could drop a quick dusting or a tenth of an inch of snow.

Download the CBS 58 Ready Weather app to track the wind chills for your community with the hour-by-hour forecast.