Tracking a quiet Wednesday before snow and extreme cold Thursday

TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy, lows in the lower 20s.

TOMORROW: Mostly cloudy, highs in the upper 30s.

EXTENDED: Temperatures drop into the lower to mid-20s tonight, so it will be a bit cooler than where we landed last night. I'm tracking continued cloud cover tomorrow, but otherwise a quiet day with highs in the upper 30s. Low pressure kicks out of the upper Plains and precipitation begins moving our way overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning. Temperatures look to drop quickly enough with the cold front that I am not seeing much of a chance for rain at the onset of our winter storm on Thursday morning. Snow begins falling from west to east before sunrise, with the highest snowfall rates between about 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Snow looks to exit sometime between 4-6:00 p.m. to the east, but we'll still have issues with blowing snow all of Thursday night into Friday morning as winds gust up to 40 mph. Strong winds will allow the wind chill to drop to near -30 by Friday morning, holding in the mid-upper negative 20s through the day. Winds ease a bit into Friday night and Saturday morning, but wind chills will still be in the -5 to -15 on Saturday morning. We finally turn the corner by Christmas Day as temperatures get back into the low 20s with sunshine in the afternoon. Snow amounts will be in the 2-4" range, with isolated 5" amounts across our northern counties. Given how cold temperatures will be, any snow that accumulates on the roads will be tough to treat as many treatments are less effective under 10 degrees. A weak clipper system may move in from the northwest Sunday night into Monday, bringing another shot at some light snow, but details on that are a little less clear. It does appear temperatures will be on the warmer side to start next week with highs in the lower 30s Monday and Tuesday.