Cold patch in Alaska

Don't worry! By the 25^th the warm weather is back. Just put it down to weather chaos

Alaska Sets New Wind Chill Record

Yahoo,

20 February, 2014

Gusting winds blew away Alaska's wind chill record on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14), setting a new low of minus 97 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 71 degrees Celsius). A remotely-operated National Weather Service sensor in Howards Pass, in northern Alaska's Brooks Range, recorded sustained winds of 71 mph (114 km/h) and gusts up to 78 mph (125 km/h) on Friday. The wind chill was calculated from the recorded temperature of minus 42 F (minus 41 C).

Wind chill is a measure of heat loss from the human body, and reflects how outdoor conditions actually feel to people braving the winter weather. Frostbite can strike in less than 5 minutes if skin is exposed in conditions like those in Howards Pass, the Alaska NWS said.

Alaska's previous wind chill record of minus 96 F (minus 71 C) was set at Prudhoe Bay on Jan. 28, 1989. Prudhoe Bay is a coastal town where oil workers process oil and gas extracted from Arctic Alaska's oil fields. Howard Pass is uninhabited and sits at 2,062 feet above sea level (628 meters), according to the Alaska National Weather Service.

Both records were computed using the weather service's "new" formula for wind chill, which was rolled out in 2001. The new formula makes wind chill temperatures warmer than pre-2001 records. For example, the Prudhoe Bay record wind chill occurred with an air temperature of minus 56 F (minus 49 C) and a wind from the west-southwest at 21 mph (34 km/h) gusting to 30 mph (48 km/h), the Alaska NWS said on Facebook. According to the 'old' formula, the Prudhoe Bay record would have registered minus 120 F (minus 84 C).

Despite the new wind chill record, Alaska's winter has been warmer than average this year. New York's Central Park has received 10 inches (25 centimeters) more snow than Anchorage this season and several Alaska towns set high temperature records in January.

After short break, winter returns to central US

Yahoo,

20 February, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) — After a brief respite of sunshine, winter returned to much of the nation's midsection Thursday, bringing a chilly mix of rain, sleet and snow and even the risk of tornadoes.

The weather accelerated long-awaited melting and added to considerable runoff, which raised concerns about flooding. Much of Illinois was under a flood watch.

To the north, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, forecasters predicted as much as 13 inches of fresh snow could fall through Friday. Minnesota expected to get 8 to 10 inches.

The governor of Wisconsin declared a state of emergency ahead of a storm expected to dump more than a foot of snow in places, and some schools closed early.

On the East Coast, Vermont officials expressed the same worry that Michigan authorities voiced the day before: that wet, heavy snow could cause dangerous roof collapses.

The snow that piled up in Illinois during weeks of subzero temperatures started to melt in earnest as temperatures rose above freezing on Wednesday and Thursday. As work crews scrambled to clear catch basins of water to prevent flooding, some people took steps to make sure protect their belongings from any floodwaters. Emergency workers evacuated dozens of residents from a nursing home in Illinois' Kankakee County as a precaution.

"It flooded in front of my house up to my boot," said Lisa Robertson, a 50-year-old computer operator, after she got off a train in Chicago from her home in the south suburbs. "Last night, we made sure nothing was on the floor of the basement, (but) I'm worried about flooding when I get home."

As of Thursday afternoon, those fears had not materialized.

"It seems like it rained less here than we expected, and we are not getting the flow of water and ice melt that we expected," said Jim Zay, chairman of the Stormwater Management Planning Committee in DuPage County west of Chicago.

Meanwhile, river gauges along some of the nation's biggest inland waterways — the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers — showed no immediate cause for alarm. Many of those rivers, traditionally low this time of year, were expected to rise into the middle of next week because of recent snowmelt and rainfall, though National Weather Service hydrologists say those water levels are still far below flood stage.

Even the fact that the rivers have not risen all that much has provoked worry.

"It tells us the water is trapped in the snowpack," said Kent McKenzie, emergency management coordinator in Lake County in northern Illinois. "We are hoping the water gets to the rivers before tonight," when the rivers could refreeze. "If it refreezes, it puts us at a higher risk of flooding when the temperatures do rise again."

In the South, the storm threat came from a line of thunderstorms expected to begin forming from St. Louis to Texarkana, Ark, and then moving east, perhaps bringing damaging winds and tornadoes.

The tantalizing spell of mild temperatures will soon be gone. The National Weather Service predicted that temperatures in Illinois could fall as low as 12 degrees on Saturday night and as low as 6 degrees Sunday night.

Illinois State Police warned that the quick refreeze could result in slippery conditions on roadways and bridges.

"Even though you don't see anything," state police spokeswoman Monique Bond said, "it is treacherous."

Midwest prepares for flooding as warmer weather, rain melts snow