An arctic air mass will produce wind chills of -20 degrees or colder across the northern Plains over the next few days.
This data visualization, created using the NOAA Visualization Laboratory's WeatherView, reveals a dramatic drop in temperatures expected to settle in over the northern Plains in the coming days.
According to NOAA's National Weather Service, an arctic air mass will produce wind chills of -20 degrees or colder across the northern Plains over the next few days. This arctic air will move down the Plains and into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, and then into the mid-Atlantic and northeast by the end of the week.
This visualization shows predicted air temperature (at 2 meters) across the entire United States. The animation begins at 1:00 a.m. EST on December 13 and runs in 6 hours increments, ending at 1:00 a.m. EST December 18. The pink, orange, and red areas represent the hottest temperatures, while yellow areas are mild. A distinct transition to blue occurs at the freezing point (32 degrees F and 0 degrees C).
The imagery is created using the NOAA Global Forecast System (GFS) weather model, one of the most widely used numerical forecast models in the world, which is updated every six hours and provides three-hour time increments for dozens of global variables. It is important to note that, like any predictive model, the forecast accuracy decreases significantly the farther out the prediction extends.
Click here to explore a world of data using NOAA's WeatherView.