Florida Freezes To Mess Up Your Grocery Bill

Farmers at Southern Hill Farm in Clermont,
Florida tried encasing crops in ice which
counterintuitively protects crops from harsh
freezes. Many farmers do this. But the 
cold was so intense in Florida the icing
did not work in many cases. Photo
from Southern Hill Farm via Facebook

This winter's cold is turning out to be expensive. And I'm not just talking about your heating bill. 

If you like fruits and vegetables, the price is probably going to spike soon, if it hasn't started to do so already thanks to those big Florida freezes. If you're tired of rising grocery prices, this isn't the news you want to hear. 

Some towns and cities hit all-time record lows for the month of February last weekend to kill off whatever didn't die in previous freezes this winter. 

The state was hit by a freeze back on December 30, with more freezes in mid-January before a series of frigid nights began around in the final week of January and intensified in February. 

It takes awhile for freeze damage to crops to become fully apparent. Farmers and agricultural organizations in Florida are just starting to assess the damage. So far, it's not looking good. 

CENTRAL FLORIDA

In central Florida, WFTV reports total losses at central Florida blueberry farms: 

"At H&A Farms, owner Michael Hill says his blueberry crop was wiped out because of the cold snap over the weekend. 'This whole farm is a complete loss,' They have a thousand acres of blueberry plants around the state. He cut into a blueberry to us the inside. "That's all brown. It's supposed to be green. 

Hill says they pack 40 percent of Florida's blueberries, which go to stores like Publix, Aldi and Costco. And because these berries died, Michael says he will no longer need the 2,000 workers to pick them in the fields or the hundreds needed to pack them."

The crop losses will have a ripple effect. Forklift operators, quality control specialists, shipping coordinators, boxers, stackers, packers, all those occupations in Florida blueberry industry vanished in a single night of cold weather. 

At one citrus farm in Plant City, in central Florida east of Tampa, temperatures remained below 28 degrees for more than six hours on both last Friday and Saturday nights. Even with covering trees with ice to protect the crops, damage starts when temperatures fall to 28 degrees or lower for four consecutive hours. 

At least eight to 10 percent of the current citrus crop was destroyed, making this the worst citrus freeze since at least 2010. Future citrus crops might be affected, too. 

"There will be heavy leaf loss from the frost damage and some of the young trees we've planted over the past ew months probably won't make it,' Trevor Murphy, the citrus grower in Plant City told AccuWeather. "The bloom and new flush on the trees will not make it either - we should have our main bloom toward the end of February into the first part of March. It'll be a few days until we start seeing leave and fruit drop. Coldest and longest duration of cold I've had since I've been growing oranges."

Also in Plant City, a farmer named Jonathan Allen, said his 120-acre field of sweet corn was wiped out. When farmers get desperate, they get creative. He tried building a berm and flooding the field to create a warmer microclimate, but the wind was so strong the subzero cold blasted right through the fields.  

"This freeze is the worst that I can remember, probably worse than 1989....Across the board it's devastation, complete devastation."

SOUTH FLORIDA

The more recent cold wave, on the weekend of January 31-February 1 blew all the way through South Florida and beyond. A town in Cuba reached 32 degrees, the first time on record that anyplace in Cuba reached the freezing point. 

Unlike previous cold waves, then, South Florida agriculture was trashed.  

As Axios Miami reports: 

Markon Cooperative, a North American produce supplier, wrote in market update on Wednesday that "recent freezing temperatures across Florida will  have a major impact on current crop production."

So yeah, that's really bad, since so much of our stuff comes from Florida. And I"m unsure how Trump's tariffs affect the price of food coming in from different nations, like Mexico. 

 Axios Miami says Markon Cooperatives affiliated squash growers report more than 50 percent of that crop has been lost. Bell pepper loses are at nearly 50 percent. Tomato growers say their fields have definitely suffered damage, but how much was still being assessed at the end of this week.

 One tomato grower told CBS Miami that a good 20 percent of his crop was probably lost. 

LANDSCAPES AND FIRES

Across most of Florida, plants, palms and some trees are now brown, wilted and battered. Some people, assuming climate change made them safe, planted tropical trees and plants in central Florida that don't tolerate freezes. 

These plants had managed to grow for years in warmer winters, only to be wrecked by this month's freeze. Proving the climate change is uneven. The general warming trend is punctuated by extremes, like the Arctic cold Florida has experienced lately.  

Floridians are being advised to leave their trashed landscaping alone for now. Then, when spring buds and shoots begin to appear, property owner will know what is destroyed and has to be removed or trimmed and which plants will survive.

Lastly, Florida now faces an increased fire risk. The state is often prone to wildfires in late winter and early spring, as the usual warm season thunderstorms are usually absent. And right now, almost all of Florida is experiencing a drought. 

This year, because of the freeze, the landscape isn't as green as it usually is. There's now a lot of dead vegetation that can easily make fires spread quickly.  Several fires were already burning before last weekend's freeze, and this will just make things worse.

No rain is forecast in central and southern Florida for at least the next seven days. Northern Florida is expecting only light rain at best.

At least it's starting to warm up in Florida. Another frost is expected tonight in far northern parts of the Sunshine State. But after that, for the foreseeable future, anyway, further frosts are unlikely for at least a week or two, if not more. 

Arctic Blast Roars In; Enjoy Freezing Your Dupa Off

Vermont State plow truck caught on traffic cam this morning
clearing Interstate 89 in Bolton. Road conditions were 
definitely iffy this morning as an Arctic cold front brought
plunging temperatures and gusty winds to the state.

Our big blast of ridiculous Arctic air was arriving as i wrote this. Yippy, I guess. 

As of 7 a.m. the cold front was approaching Lake Champlain. Ahead of the front, temperatures were in the reasonable teens, with fairly light winds. There was an inch or two of fresh fluffy snow on the ground out there. All in all, very lovely.

Then the front crashed through. You could see the data from New York and northwestern Vermont as soon as the cold front went through.

 The temperature dropped to zero or below and the wind immediately became strong and gusty from the north. In many spots a  burst of heavier snow accompanies the transition into our Siberian weekend. 

The front had just barely passed Burlington as of 7 a.m. At that point, they saw a burst of heavy snow, and winds immediately rose to near 30 mph in gusts. 

So today will not be a pleasant one. Some of you in eastern Vermont will still be basking in what is comparatively summer warmth when you read this, as you might still be in the teens for temperatures for awhile this morning. 

But not for long!

This obviously won't be a record-breaking cold blast for Vermont. We've seen worse in the past. For comparison, the coldest actual temperature in this Arctic weekend in Burlington will probably be near 10 below.  Record lows this time of year are in the mid and upper 20s below zero.   

The air from Siberia that's moving in this morning is actually about as cold as the air we saw in an Arctic blast on January 23-25. This one will feel a little worse than the January cold because we'll have more wind this time. 

The overall forecast has not changed much since yesterday. In Vermont, it might not go as quickly below zero today as it did in New York, because the front is coming through the Green Mountain State at a time of day the temperature is normally rising. 

The temperature should fall throughout the day in Vermont. It might briefly hold steady early this afternoon with the sun coming out, but it won't matter. Most of us will spend the day within a few degrees either side of 0. 

Gusty north winds blowing all that fluffy snow around will make it feel brutal out there. 

Road conditions this morning weren't great, either, and will probably be slow to improve. The snow will tend to taper off as the morning goes on. The mountains could hold to a little fresh, windblown falling snow this afternoon.

If you insist on going skiing or riding today, you might want to check with your favorite ski area first.The resorts might have wind holds on some of their lifts. And wind chills on exposed mountain slopes will be falling into the 20s, 30s and even possibly 40s below zero this afternoon.

The wind will continue to crank all night tonight at between 10 and 20 mph as temperatures fall to within a few degrees either side of 10 below.  The combination will bring wind chills close to 30 below. 

 We're getting into late winter now. The sun angle is improving a bit. It's now the same angle as it was in the opening days of November. That higher sun angle will allow us to warm up to -- get ready for this! -- 5 above zero or so Sunday afternoon.   I think if this same cold wave hit in late December or early January, we might have highs at or below zero instead because of the lower sun angle earlier in the winter. 

There's your sign of spring, I guess.

It'll quickly go back below zero tomorrow evening and stay there until around mid morning Monday.

We're still looking at a warming trend next week. Monday should get up into the teens. Still cold, but better. After a final below zero morning low Tuesday for most of us, the rest of the week should be pretty average for mid-February. There might be a little snow, but nothing really to worry about. 

For a good month now, the computer models have kept cranking out large, complex storms for us roughly 10 days from when those forecasts are released. Then when we get closer to the date of the supposed storm, practically nothing shows up.

This morning's American model was no different. Social media scare mongers might seize on that computer model to say we're in for big, nasty storms February 18 and 22.  Don't believe it. Only start getting worried about a big winter storm if meteorologists are saying one is coming within three or four days.  

By the way, our Siberian express cold wave is more impress in the Mid-Atlantic States than it is here.

The onslaught of frigid weather is being accompanied by wind gusts to 60 mph in places like Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. 

In Washington DC the wind chill is forecast to be below zero for up to 30 consecutive hours. That's the longest stretch of such cold for them since 1994. Some power outages caused by the high winds might not get repaired for a couple days because of the frigid weather, making this Siberian Express especially dangerous in that region. 

 

Some Of America's Wildest Winter Storm Videos Of 2026 Part 2

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina did not look like the warm
vacation destination it usually is judging by this photo
taken just after last weekend's southern snowstorm.
Photo from Visit Myrtle Beach
South Carolina via Facebook.

It's been a dramatic winter of storms in the U.S. There's been a lot of videos floating around social media proving that fact. 

I've already put up one round of videos back on January 28.

But, more storms, more video! So let's get into it: 

Back in late January, just after the ice storm that slammed Mississippi, Tennessee and surrounding areas, the weight of the ice was still crumbling southern buildings even a couple days after the precipitation ended. 

Here's a dramatic surveillance video of a building in Benton, Arkansas losing the battle against the weight on the roof. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Video by Storm Chaser Aaron Rigsby of wild blizzard conditions on Cape Hatteras last Saturday and Saturday night, followed by a house fire Sunday morning in Nags Head. People down there had their hands full. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

Reed Timmer, who normally chases tornadoes, chased the winter storm down to Emerald Isle, on the barrier islands not far from Cape Lookout, North Carolina. He found snow drifts nearly burying cars. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina looked strange in the snow, too. Those palmetto trees looked out of place in the near blizzard conditions and in under the bright blue skies and blowing snow the next day. Again click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Farmers in Florida often spray water on crops when temperatures fall below freezing. This actually protects the plants when temperatures go into the upper 20s and low 30s. 

But in at least one case, at a blueberry farm, the ice quickly grew inches and inches thick because it was so cold, and the subfreezing temperatures lasted so long, that the ice accumulated rapidly. The wind also knocked over equipment, increasing the volume of water hitting the fields.   Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

If people thought the snow was too deep where they were, they should look at the Tug Hill Plateau near Lake Ontario, New York. The region gets blasted by huge lake effect snows almost every winter. This year has been especially big on snow there, as the lake keeps delivering, and a lack of thaws has kept much of the snow on the ground. 

By the way, a little more lake affect snow is forecast for the area in the next few days, but it will only be a few inches. Not several feet. For a look, here's a news video from the area: As always, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Sad stories come out after storms like this from sometimes unexpected places. In Nashville, a plant store that sold mostly cactus and succulents lost power for a week, damaging the plants to the point they can't be sold. The owner lost $100,000 in merchandise. The insurer State Farm initially said they would cover the damage, but, as big corporations do, found a way to weasel out paying. 

It does look like people are trying to donate to help the store owner out. Here's the cautionary news cast. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below click on that.  

Bracing For The Cold Snap In Vermont/Northeast

Snow forecast through tomorrow. But the fluffy snow we'll'
get isn't our big problem. The Arctic cold this weekend will
be what to watch out for. 

 Editor's Note: I'm recovering from my Wednesday eye surgery, which went well, so I might be posting at odd times or not as frequently as usual for awhile yet. We apologize for the inconvenience.

It got below zero in most places around Vermont early today. That's become a bit of a routine. That's the 11th below zero day Burlington  has had this winter and there are several more coming. 

The last time we had more below zero days in a  winter was just a few years back in 2021-22 with 20 days zero or below. 

Back in the 1960s, 1970s or even 1980s, we'd routinely have two or three dozen subzero days each winter, so this is no great shakes compared to what your parents or grandparents went through. 

There are some things about the cold weather we've had this year that feel novel. On instance is, of course Lake Champlain, which, if it didn't completely freeze over last night, probably will between now and early next week. 

Many parts of Lake Champlain, including inside the Burlington Breakwater have been ice-free or too unsafe to walk on in recent years. This year the area between Burlington's Waterfront Park and the Breakwater have become a crowd pleaser.  

Until tonight, anyway, there hasn't been much snow at all since January 26. Sections of the lake, like some area inside the breakwater and many other areas, have become great for ice skating. 

Enjoy if you can this afternoon, as this weekend will be terrible for outdoor winter fun. 

It'll cloud up as we go through late this afternoon and evening ahead of our Blast from Siberia. 

The bulk of the snow should come through roughly between around midnight and mid-morning Saturday. A bit of an upper level low along the cold front might enhance the snowfall a little. It'll amount to two of three inches of fluff for most of us. Maybe a little less than that east of the Green Mountains. And maybe four to five inches right in the ski resort zones of the Green Mountains. 

The snow might briefly come fairly hard while the cold front is passing by early tomorrow morning. The best guess is the front will make it into the Champlain Valley by roughly 4 a.m. and will pass into New Hampshire within a couple hours, give or take, after that. 

Our daytime highs will be in the mid teens to around 20 in the wee hours of tomorrow before the Arctic front blasts through. The Arctic air means business and it will come in fast on strong north winds. The temperature will fall all day.

That fluffy snow will blow around in wind that will gust over 30 mph. So there will probably be visibility problems on the roads in open areas even after the snow stops. Travel on the highways won't be great for the first part of Saturday, so you'll want to fit that into your plans.

Various cold weather alerts are in effect, which might make things a little confusing. Here in the North Country, they issue a cold weather advisory if forecasters think the wind chill will be between 20 an 30 below. An extreme cold warning goes into effect if the wind chill is going to be 30 below or worse.

Since the cold air is arriving in New York first and will establish itself more deeply during the day, an extreme cold warning is in effect on that side of the lake from 7 a.m. tomorrow to 1 p.m. Sunday.  

The wind Saturday might be a bit stronger in southern Vermont than in the north, which would lower the wind chill somewhat. So the southernmost two counties in Vermont are also under an extreme cold warning tomorrow and tomorrow night.

The rest of Vermont is under a cold weather advisory from late tomorrow afternoon to early Sunday afternoon. 

I wouldn't worry about the distinction between cold advisories and warnings and exactly when they go into effect. Just know it will be dangerously frigid outdoors in Vermont and surrounding states and in Quebec from roughly mid to late morning tomorrow well into Sunday.

I'm almost happy I have an eye injury as it gives me yet another excuse not to go outside this weekend 

That little upper level low that's coming with our cold front will be an ingredient that will feed a "bomb cyclone" or rapidly developing nor'easter far offshore of New England. 

The squeeze play between that bomb cyclone and the Arctic air we have coming in from Siberia will keep the wind going Saturday night. That's when things get really bad. Overnight lows will be near 10 below, or maybe low teens below. But the winds will keep gusting to maybe 25 mph or so.  That's when the wind chills go into the 20s an 30s below.

It's the kind of night I worry about if somebody crashes off a road at 2 in the morning and just freezes to death there. Or an overworked wood stove sets a house on fire.  People who live there, escape out into the cold in their pajamas, if they're lucky enough to escape at all. Then imagine you're a fire chief managing the task of putting the fire out in that weather. 

All kinds of dark scenarios go through my head when it gets this cold. Winter doesn't always inspire a glass half full kind of attitude.

Anyway, we get to Sunday and it will be bright and sunny. Yay!  But the strengthening February sun will only briefly get us a little above zero in the afternoon, and we'll still have a north breeze to keep the wind chill ridiculous. 

The wind will die down a little Sunday night. But the air should stir enough to prevent us from getting to say 20 or 30 below, like it would if it went dead calm.

But expect lows in the teens below zero by early Monday morning. And wind chills perhaps in the 20s below again.  

A warming trend of sorts will start Monday. By then we should get into the low teens. That's still cold but will fantastic after the weekend we'll have.

The rest of the week will be probably just a tiny bit cooler than average for mid-February. We'll have highs in the 20s, lows in the single numbers. Pretty close to the way this week has been. We'll take it! 

Enjoy The Semi-Heatwave: Vermont/Eastern U.S. Still In For Brutal Weekend Arctic Blast

Satellite photo from early this afternoon shows a little 
open water on Lake Champlain still. It might freeze
over tonight with calm winds and lows near 0. If not
the next, far more brutal cold wave over the weekend
and Monday should do it. 

Editor's Note: I'm recovering from yesterday's' eye surgery, which went well, so I might be posting at odd times or not as frequently as usual for awhile yet. We apologize for the inconvenience. 

Wow, we almost got up to normal in Vermont temperatures in Burlington yesterday. The average temperature was 20 degrees, which was just half a degree below normal. We haven't had a warmer than average day since January 23. 

As of today, we've had 15 consecutive days in Burlington that never got above freezing. That's nowhere near our longest stretch on record, which was 51 days from December 22, 1976 to February 11 1977,

We're not even that close to getting into the top 10 list for consecutive subfreezing days which is 29 days, set on four different occasions must recently from January 5 to February 3, 2004.

Even so, we've got quite a few days to go without any thawing, and there will be a brutal Arctic blast thrown in for good measure. 

Today, as you have been able to tell, is nice. It's been in the 20s this afternoon, the sun is out, who can complain? 

Satellite photos this afternoon still show a fairly large area of open water right in the middle of Lake Champlain but it still could freeze overnight. Ice forms best on the lake when it's at least near or a little below zero and there's calm winds. Wind would push the ice around and break it up. We're expecting exactly those conditions tonight. 

We'll find out tomorrow whether the lake actually freezes or not. Friday will be another nice day with a fair amount of sun and temperatures getting back into the low and mid 20s. Still vaguely cooler than average for this time of year, but not bad. 

BUT THEN........

Our long-advertised brutal Arctic cold front will bring one to three inches of light, fluffy snow, with a bit more in the mountains and maybe the far northern Champlain Valley late Friday night and Saturday morning. But that's not what we're worried about.

The air we're getting is coming is a straight shot from Siberia. It went up and over the North Pole and is blasting its way toward us in New England. Aren't we lucky?   

The big temperature crash is coming a few hours later than we saw in earlier forecasts. Instead of hitting on Friday evening, the real plunge in temperatures won't come until a little before dawn on Saturday. High for the day will be in the teens in the hours just after midnight, so we won't have a rare day in which the high is below zero.

But don't you worry if you want an unbearably cold Saturday, we got ya! By mid to late morning Saturday and continuing through the afternoon, the temperature will head toward subzero readings.  

Winds will gust past 30 mph. On top of the dangerously cold air out there, the fluffy snow that is on the ground now and is coming will blow around a lot. 

Yuck! This might well be the cruelest cold we've had our winter.

Already, an extreme cold watch is in effect for wind chills as low as 35 below zero from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon.  Extreme cold watches, along with winter weather and high wind alerts cover most of the northeastern United States as we all gear up for a rough weekend. 

Parts of North Carolina had a little more snow last night, so they are once again dealing with icy patches there.

It's still unseasonably cold in Florida, and a freeze warning is up again for the northern part of the state tonight. However, most fortunately for them, the intense cold wave that's hitting the Northeast this weekend will not hit Florida much. No hard freezes are likely in Florida after tonight. 

Back here in Vermont, the wind will die down slightly Saturday night to 10 to 20 mph hour, but the temperature will keep going down as well. By dawn, it will be in the upper single numbers to mid-teens below zero.

Sunday  I supposed will be better, but that's not saying much. The wind should gradually get lighter. The sun will probably drive afternoon temperatures into the single digits above zero for a few hours.   But it will be right back down well below zero Sunday night and Monday morning 

The AWESOME news is this might be the last horrible Arctic spell for awhile. The weather pattern is changing just enough so that new blasts of Arctic air won't be nearly as intense next week and beyond. 

That's not to say that this will be the last subzero cold of the winter. It can get below zero well into mid-March. But we are probably in for at least a semi-break.

It'll still be cold Monday and to a lesser extent Tuesday, with subzero mornings both days. But the second half of the week will at least be closer to normal. 

We don't have a lot of details on the second half of next week because the computer models are all over the place on that one.  Which means we also don't know when the next snow will come after whatever falls Friday night and Saturday. We'll probably have nothing until at least next Wednesday.  

Greenhouse Gas Emissions In The United States Increased In 2025, Dropped In China,

It looks like this guy will ensure coal and oil use 
continue to spew more and more greenhouse gas
emissions into the atmosphere, but at least it looks
like China and India are trying 
to reign in fossil fuel use. 

 Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States went up by 2.4% in 2025, reversing two previous years of decreases, according to a BBC report.  

Part of the reason for the increase was just bad weather luck. January, 2025 was colder than most other recent winters. Homes burned more gas for heating than usual, while coal use rose by 13% to meet rising electricity demands. 

Data centers driven by soaring use of AI, and a raging cryptocurrency fad or industry (depending upon how how you look at it) were a big driver of the greenhouse gas emissions. 

We rightly blame Donald Trump for a bunch of new or looming environmental ills because of his militantly pro oil and coal stance. 

However the damage from Trump was probably minimal in 2025.  It'll almost surely increase starting this year. 

At least China and India seem to be counteracting the U.S. and preventing an enormous boom in emissions. Electricity generated by coal declined in India by 3%. China's coal generation was down 1.6 percent from the previous year. It's the first time since 1973 that coal-based electricity generation fell simultaneously in both countries.

 "The fall in 2025 is a sign of things to come, as both countries added a record amount of new clean-power generation last year, which was more than sufficient to meet rising demand," according to Carbon Brief, which did the analysis on India and China's greenhouse gas emissions. 

It's possible both countries are reaching a historic peak in coal use. Climatologists and other scientists are hoping from now, coal use in China and India continue to decline. 

China managed to reduce coal consumption despite electricity demand growing by 5 percent over the year. India's reduction in coal use might have been partly weather related. The extreme heat waves India has experienced in recent years were not quite as severe in 2025. 

Bottom line: We have a mixed future in further diminishing the global dependence on coal and oil. But the United States, once in a leader in the battle against climate change, has turned into the world's worst enemy. 

That seems to be a trend lately.  

A Couple Reasonable Vermont Days, Then Gusty Icebox

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm having emergency eye surgery today. I will be fine, but you'll notice I'm posting infrequently over the next few days. I apologize in advance for being MIA

Another view of frozen Lake Champlain on Monday 
Photo taken at St. Albans Bay. Although parts of the
lake are solidly frozen, other parts still have weak
and thin ice. Be careful out there! 

We in Vermont have a couple more days of reasonable weather before the bottom drops out again and we freeze our tushes off. 

It was nice and toasty Tuesday with highs again mostly in the 20s. Burlington reached a high temperature of 30, so it was the warmest day since January 22. 

By the way, if you're venturing out onto lakes, be careful.  The ice out there  can still be dicey, despite the recent cold weather. That's especially true on Lake Champlain, which still has some open water out in the middle. 

Vermont State Police said five skaters got stranded on Lake Champlain Tuesday near Charlotte when a section of ice they were on broke free and started to float away. 

The skaters were about 675 feet offshore of Charlotte, Vermont. Rescuers used an inflatable boat to cross 200 feet of open water to take the skaters one at a time back to stable ice. From there, the skaters were able to walk to shore. They're fine. 

But, it's a sign we shouldn't go too far out onto Lake Champlain. Let's just say don't walk from Burlington to Plattsburgh or anything stupid like that. 

FORECAST:

We've got just a minor cool down today and tomorrow, but nothing extreme. At least not yet. 

You'll want to be a bit careful driving to work or school this morning, especially in northern Vermont, as some snow showers are passing through.  

So far, the snow didn't look too heavy or particularly widespread on radar before dawn today.  I expect there might be a few slick spots on the roads, though. 

But it will pretty much clear out this afternoon. It'll be cooler than yesterday with highs near 20, which is still not bad for February. A tiny piece of Arctic air will sneak in Thursday night, dropping temperatures to near 0 again before we recover to the low 20s again Friday.

Then we get blasted by a strong cold front Friday night with a burst of snow, maybe amounting to an inch or two. By Saturday morning, temperatures will be in the single numbers and still falling.  Some of the colder places could fall below zero by late morning. 

It's going to be a frigid weekend, with lows below zero through Monday morning at least. Next Tuesday morning could be below zero as well. Those temperatures in single numbers during the day Saturday will repeat themselves Sunday 

Howling north winds will send wind chills far, far below zero, especially on Saturday. Sunday will have some north breezes, too,so the chill will be an issue then. But it probably won't be quite as bad as Saturday.  

The wind might finally die off Sunday night, which would drop our temperatures into the teens below zero in many areas.

One saving grace is that the Arctic cold this weekend won't be quite as intense as some earlier forecasts I saw. Also, the wind might also not be as strong or long-lasting as those earlier forecasts. Even so, it'll be a brutal weekend out there. 

We're hoping temperatures get close to normal again by midweek. And we're still banking on a weather pattern change that would put us up for at least several days after midweek in which temperatures will be near or even a tad above normal. It won't be springtime, but at least it might be tolerable!