Friday, January 8, 2010

We've Been Cold For How Long?!?

2010 has really started off on a cold note and it looks as though we are going to remain cold for the next several days.

The high temperature at the Cape Girardeau airport has been below freezing (32°F/0°C) every hour of the new year. We can even go back a couple of hours in 2009 to start our cold streak. The last time we were above freezing was at approximately 2:45pm CT December 31, 2009.

As of 3:00pm CT today, the temperature at the Cape Girardeau airport was 16°. That means the streak continues at 192 hours at or below freezing.


To give some perspective as to how cold we have been this month we are 13.5° below average per day (through January 7). That equates to a temperature deficit of 94.5°.

Now the question everyone wants to know... When will it start to warm back up? To answer that, lets take a look at temperatures from one of the computer models.


I have drawn in the 32° line (approximately) on the image above. Follow the red line from right to left and see when it touches or goes above the line.

It looks as though we might get near 32° by Monday afternoon. If not Monday, it appears that Tuesday would be a best shot. If this is the case, we will add anywhere from an additional 72 hours (Monday afternoon) or 96 hours (Tuesday afternoon) to our temperature streak. That would take our consecutive at or below freezing streak to 264 hours or 288 hours.

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