An intense Arctic cold snap has settled across the Northern Plains, with dangerously low temperatures expected to linger through the end of January and into early February. Nutrien Principal Atmospheric Scientist Eric Snodgrass said the cold air mass originated in the Arctic after heat built up in Alaska and Scandinavia, allowing the cold to plunge south. Despite the cold, snowfall has been limited, raising concerns about moisture deficits heading toward spring. Snodgrass said lingering La Niña impacts are favoring fast-moving clipper systems instead of major snow-producing storms. “What it does is it tends to give us more jet stream flow that comes out of the Northwest, which means we’re seeing clipper systems rather than these big lows that can create blizzard conditions and dump a lot more snow.
