The Next Round of Cold Begins

I recently wrote about what the jetstream was doing and was expected to do. In that article, I said that the next cold wave was due to begin in a few days. Right on schedule, we have the blast of cold air moving in.

I should mention that the area of Montana we live in is often known as the “banana belt of Montana”. What people mean by that is that in our town, we normally get milder temperatures than what the rest of the state experiences. It tends to be a little warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than even locations only 50 miles away.

This holds true with this cold snap, too. Our temperature as of 6 am this morning was 9 F / -13 C, with a stiff breeze. Compared to the rest of the state, it is downright toasty here. Malmstrom Air Force Base and Jordan, Montana are both reporting a temperature of -13 F. That isn’t the coldest spot in the state. Cutbank, Montana, near the Canadian border, is currently -17. 

When the wind speed is figured in, it is downright chilly. Our windchill is sitting at -9. At Malmstrom, the windchill is -38. In Cutbank, the windchill is presently -44. 

It actually sounds worse than it is. That is, -10 doesn’t feel appreciably different than -40. Our bodies stop differentiating temperatures once they get much below zero. Hypothermia can occur faster, but it doesn’t really feel colder. However, there is also a lot of moisture streaming in from the Pacific and this is falling as fine, dry snow. Both the snow and the cold will be moving eastward across the northern US.

There is another consequence of an abrupt temperature change. Our temperatures went from warm to cold literally overnight. Saturday, our high was in the mid 40’s. Sunday morning at 6 am, It was still in the high 30’s and it was raining hard. In about 10 minutes time, the temperatures dropped about 10 degrees and the rain turned to freezing rain, coating everything in a layer of ice before the snow began to fall. 

Freezing rain leads to very slippery conditions. Adding a layer of fine, dry snow on top of that is much worse. It isn’t all negative, though. In the mountains, putting a layer of freezing rain on top of the snow means that the snow will take longer to melt. Assuming that we have a normal spring, that is good news. Unfortunately, most of the last decade, we’ve had colder, snowier, longer winters and shorter summers than normal. If this weather continues, and it is slated to continue for at least a week, we could still have a lot of snow in the mountains into June once again. If it turns abruptly warm in late June or early July like it did last year, we could again have heavy flooding throughout the state.

The point is that this latest cold snap doesn’t come as a surprise to the people who’ve been watching what the jetstream has been doing. It isn’t especially difficult to predict what the weather is going to do. In fact, I did a few days ago. This is one reason that climatology is a pseudo-science and not true science at all. No scientific degree is necessary in order to be a climatologist. All that is necessary is for a person to say that they are a climatologist. That’s why there are in excess of 950,000 climatologists in the US. Still, it helps to have a basic understanding of weather and access to things such as the jetstream maps. 

The cold weather is moving east, but unless the jetstream suddenly dips south, which isn’t particularly likely, most of the US shouldn’t experience most of the cold, snowy conditions we are having. The Great Lakes region and Northeast US are almost certainly going to feel this next round of snow and cold, though. This weather should arrive there in the next few days.