Is this cold air record-setting? Dangerous wind chills are expected tonight!

February in Wisconsin is supposed to mean snow storms and cold air. Over the past week we sure have seen the former, now it's time for the latter.

Highs in the single digits are certainly not uncommon in the month of February. However, interestingly enough, we have not seen many of them on the 17th day of February. Take a look at the top five coldest days for February 17th on record:

It's quite possible today breaks into that top five list.

But we are not done...

Thanks to a clear sky and lesser wind tonight, the temperatures may sink even farther down the thermometer. Expect readings Tuesday morning to be around -8°. Then, adding in the wind, we will likely be back around -20° to -15° for wind chill values.


Part of the reason it has suddenly become so cold: the freshly fallen snow. With that snow sitting on the ground, we are not able to draw in and retain the sun's heat. Typically, that would get "stored" in the ground. But given the ground is now covered, all of the heat it actually reflected back up and out into the atmosphere.

We need a few days to melt those top layers of snow--exposing more ground--before we start to see temperatures climb. It looks like that should happen as we hit the weekend.

And for those wondering: no, we do not have any snow storms in the forecast for this week. But February (and the winter season) is not over just yet.