Morning Edition; Polar Vortex

It's morning edition on K-R-P-S. The end of winter, it's about five weeks away. The official end of the season and the start of spring may seem like a million years away. The change of season happens on Saturday, March 20th. Yesterday, I spoke with meteorologists in charge Kelsey Angle at the National Weather Service Office since Springfield, Missouri. The office oversees both Southwest, Missouri, and Southeast Kansas. Angle says the snow should slow starting this morning across the area. The snow will start to taper off from west to east across the area Monday morning. It does look like Monday afternoon will be dry. We do expect cold conditions to continue throughout the entire week. And we do have additional accumulating snow possible coming up as soon as late Tuesday night into Wednesday. Yes, there is a good chance that we will have more snow later this week and temperatures across the four states will remain lower than expected. The average daily temp for February in-job and is just below 40 degrees. So far this month, the city has averaged only a high

of 32.8 degrees, almost seven degrees cooler than usual. According to Angle, these past few days have been record breaking. Well, in regards to temperatures, this is extreme cold. So temperatures for a good chunk of the month of February have been below normal. And it does look like that strategy will continue where we will see below freezing temperatures right on through at least Thursday, potentially Friday. And then this weekend looks to be a little bit warmer. Right now, the forecasted highs for this upcoming Saturday are near freezing. Why haven't we been able to get closer to average temps in the four states? A vast, frigid air mass that stretches from Texas to Maine is the reason why. Well, we have an extremely cold air mass, an article mass that's just entrenched across the middle part of the country until we get a strong enough change in the upper air pattern to our west to nudge that to the east

locked in place. Traveling in extremely cold temperatures, snow and ice can be dangerous. Consistently cold temperatures can also have effects on car batteries causing them not to turn over. According to Angle, with temps near zero and the wind shield into the negative teens, you have to take extra precautions when driving. Well, certainly if you're going to travel, make sure that you give your travel plans to a neighbor, to a friend, to a family member, and let them know what time you're expected to arrive. Also, if you're going to be traveling, you want to make sure you've got a winter safety kit because with temperatures this cold, if you do run into the unfortunate circumstance where you do have a car trouble, it's not going to take too long with extreme temperatures before frostbite or hypothermia starts to set in. So certainly, this is the type of cold that you do want to take serious, you do want to respect it. And if you know at all possible, stay inside and dress appropriately for the conditions that are out there.

Fiebiori is the coldest month for winter in the four states. Forecasted record breaking lows and highs are expected today according to the National Weather Service. The forecasted high in Joplin today is expected to be near six degrees. That would break a 14-year record that was set in 2007 when the high was just 22 degrees. A new record breaking low tonight of negative four, very close to the record of negative six that was sent in 1905. Yes, 116 years ago. Angle from the National Weather Service in Springfield, says, yes, this is winter. It's going to be cold and a part of the larger cycle of weather patterns. Current pattern we end certainly is a winter weather pattern. And it does look like this upcoming weekend will start to transition to somewhat of a warmer pattern. If you look at it from a climate illogical standpoint, mid February tends to be really the heart of our winter. And when we've historically seen some of the coldest conditions within the records themselves.

So as we get deeper into the month and into March, temperatures will start to warm and we'll transition eventually more to a spring-like weather pattern. That was Kelsey Angle, the in-charge meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri. Speaking about this current storm we're having in the extremely cold temperatures throughout the area. For KRPS, I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro in Web City.