25 WEATHER — The arctic cold front that we've been discussing at length for a while is on its way.
Over the past couple days, brutally cold air has been bottling up in Canada and the northern Plains.
Wednesday morning, that air mass finally started to move, bringing about radical temperature changes for anyone in the way. Things got started early this morning for parts of Montana, where shifts of over two-dozen degrees happened in a matter of minutes.
Think the weather changes fast in MT? 👀
— NWS Great Falls (@NWSGreatFalls) December 21, 2022
The temperature in Dillon recently fell 26 degrees in three minutes with the passage of the Arctic cold front between 422am and 425am. Heavy snow and north winds to 40 mph with frontal passage as temps fell below zero. #MTwx pic.twitter.com/yDGa9nsvD9
In addition to the rapid temperature drop, Dillon, MT had to deal with winds gusting over 40 mph as the light snow turned to heavy snow.
As the front continued to plow south over the course of the day, more temperature extremes were observed. Take a look at Cheyenne, WY.
The cold front has arrived in Cheyenne and it is already a record-breaker! From 1:05 to 1:35, the temperature plunged from 43 to 3 degrees, a FOURTY-DEGREE drop in just 30 minutes! This shatters our previous 1-hour temp drop record of 37 degrees, and we are still dropping! #wywx pic.twitter.com/twQcNgy9qx
— NWS Cheyenne (@NWSCheyenne) December 21, 2022
What's really impressive about those stats is that Cheyenne's record of a one-hour temperature drop was easily broken in just 30 minutes. At 4 p.m. Mountain Time, Cheyenne had dropped to -6° with a wind chill of -31°.
When the front arrives in Central Texas tomorrow morning, we will also experience large temperature swings, though not quite as dramatic as places in Wyoming and Montana. Temperatures mid-morning Thursday will be in the mid-40s, but once 1 p.m. rolls around, we could be looking at temperatures in the mid to upper-20s.
Windy conditions are certain, but we will not be receiving any snow outside of a flake or two.
