Coldest day of 2015? Feeling 70 degrees warmer next week

School-closing cold

That's when you know it's cold in Minnesota. When major school districts shutter for the day, it's seriously cold. We all tell stories of how we got stuck at the bus stop as kids. Had to walk two miles to school. Stuck in snow drifts up to our hips as 5-year-olds. Funny stories 30 years later.

Deadly serious Wednesday morning.

Wednesday brings the coldest day in Minnesota so far this winter, possibly all winter. Wind chill warnings are up until 11 a.m. Wednesday.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN

504 PM CST TUE JAN 6 2015

...DANGEROUSLY COLD WIND CHILLS EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING ACROSS ALL OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MINNESOTA INTO WESTERN WISCONSIN...

ANOTHER SURGE OF ARCTIC AIR WILL ARRIVE TONIGHT INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING PRODUCING BITTERLY COLD LOW TEMPERATURES FROM 10 BELOW TO 15 BELOW ZERO. THIS COLDER AIR COMBINED WITH BRISK NORTHWEST WINDS WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILL VALUES BETWEEN 35 AND 40 DEGREES BELOW ZERO ACROSS ALL OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MINNESOTA INTO WESTERN WISCONSIN...LATE TONIGHT AND EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING.

Here's a look at actual air temperatures Wednesday morning. Temps close to -15 in the metro...cloers to -30 up north. Pipe bursting sub-zero pain extends all the way south to Kansas City and central Illinois. Grab your Sunggie and stay in bed all day...if you have that option.

The United (Frozen) States of America

The deep freeze extends all the way to the Gulf and East Coasts. By my count, 30 states are under some type of wind chill or winter weather warning or advisory.

Here's a closer look at the gory details of what will likely be the coldest week of the winter in the metro and Minnesota. Temperatures are for Twin Cities at MSP Airport. A character building string of sub-zero nights.

This too shall pass: January thaw next week?

One thing we know about cold waves: They tend to fade with time. It's just a question of how soon, and how mild after?

All indications are next week should be much warmer. The Global Forecast System runs crank out highs in the 30s by late next week into the weekend of January 17-18.

From wind chills of -35 to air temps of +35, it should feel about 70 degrees warmer in Minnesota late next week.

Hang in there!

Mom was right: Keep warm to avoid the common cold

Because mom was right about everything. It turns out staying warm help maintains your core body temperature and helps your immune system fight off the common cold virus. More from the BBC:

The virus behind the common cold is much happier in a cold nose, US researchers suggest. Their study showed the human immune system was weaker in cooler temperatures, allowing the virus to thrive. The researchers suggested keeping your nose warm and avoiding cold air while infected.

The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

Rhinoviruses are one of the main groups of virus that leaves our noses streaming and us sneezing. The team at Yale University tested rhinoviruses at a nose temperature of 33C, and a normal body temperature of 37C.

Minnesnowta? 

We can rightfully brag about snow in Minnesota. But heavier snowfall events actually occur less frequently than you may think.

University of Minnesota researcher Dr. Kenny Blumenfeld penned a nice piece on the frequency of various snowfall events in Minnesota. His conclusions? Heavy snowfalls of 8-inches or more only occur about every 2 years.

Here's more from Kenny's excellent piece in the The Blue Norther, which is the newsletter of the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Society.

The snowfall return-periods estimates in the accompanying table below further illustrate the wisdom of Boulay’s comments. A given point around the Twin Cities will get eight inches in a day only about every two years on average, and a foot or more about every decade. For 24-hour periods, the frequencies come up somewhat, but daily snowfalls of at least 12 inches are rare; they don’t even happen twice per decade on average.

So far this season snowfall is at 15.6 inches at MSP Airport. That's 8.5 inches below average to date. I don't see any big storms on the horizon just yet.

Now back to stoking the fire in the Weather Lab.