4Warn Weather – Brace for the bitter cold! You may have missed Saturday’s highest temperatures. We peaked with temperatures in the mid 30s to 40 degrees before sunrise.
The mild temperatures will keep most of the precipitation as rain, but some mixing of wet snow will occur as cold air arrives from the northwest during the morning. Little to no snow accumulation is expected. Any snow accumulation will be mainly limited to grassy surfaces.
Behind a strong cold front, temperatures will drop closer to freezing in Metro Detroit by 10 a.m. However, showers will be winding down around that time. Most shower activity will have ended by noon. During the afternoon, under mostly cloudy, temperatures will tumble into the 20s. Standing water will freeze up. Morning winds will be out of the southwest at 8 to 16 mph with gusts up to 25 mph before becoming northwesterly.
Lions tailgaters will want to prepare for a cold evening. Wind chills will be in teens and single digits.
Saturday night will be mostly cloudy and cold. Lows will be 10 to 14 degrees. Overnight wind chills will be near 0.
Sunday
Sunday morning’s wind chills will be -5 to 5 degrees. It will be mostly cloudy with the chance of a couple of lake-effect snow showers. Highs will be in the teens to 20 degrees. Northwesterly winds will be 5 to 10 mph.
Sunday night will be mostly cloudy with lows ranging from 0 to 5. Wind chills will be as low as -10 in Metro Detroit and -15 in Ann Arbor, Flint, and the Thumb.
4Warn Weather Alert
The arrival of the coldest air that we have seen this season, including dangerously low winds, will require people to take precautions. A 4Warn Weather Alert has been declared for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the extreme cold.
Monday
It will be partly cloudy and bitterly cold on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Morning wind chills will be as low as -15 degrees. Monday’s highs will only be around 10 degrees.
While lows will be -5 to 0 degrees, wind chills from Monday night into Tuesday morning could plummet to -20 degrees (or 20 degrees below zero). Dangerously low wind chills near -25 degrees can result in frostbite in 15 minutes.
Tuesday
Expect a mix of sun and clouds on Tuesday with highs only in the single digits. Lows will be around -5 (5 below zero). Metro Detroit’s official record low for the date is -21 degrees, which occurred on Jan. 21, 1984. The average high is 32 degrees, and the average low is 18 degrees.
Midweek and Late Week
High temperatures will climb to the teens on Wednesday and the 20s by late week.