January was forecasted to be a month of extreme cold. Those forecasts may be coming to fruition as the latter days of the month approaches.

Weather forecasters are telling Michiganders, particularly those in the western Upper Peninsula to brace for wind chill values as cold as 30 to 40 degrees below zero.

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The winter season began with near record snowfall across the central and eastern Upper Peninsula which ending up entombing cars at Tahquamenon Falls.

A January cold snap was predicted by climatologists in December who foresaw a warming of the stratosphere which would drive frigid air from the top of the planet racing down to the mid northern latitudes/.

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That may be the exact scenario that is setting up for the days around January 20.

frozen scene
Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash
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Meteorologist Brad Sugden who maintains a popular following on social media shared a prediction of arctic cold air originated from Russia coming into the northern Great Plains and Great Lakes. He reports:

extremely cold air, with wind, descends into the Continental U.S. This air will traverse the north pole, coming from Siberia. Wind chills in North Dakota could be as cold as -50F and maybe some as cold as -30 to -40F in the Western U.P. This should start arriving Sunday into MLK / Inauguration Day.

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While the National Weather Service in Marquette has not yet made any wind chill predictions in their extended forecast (as of publication of this story on 1/14) the long range forecast into the weekend does call for overnight lows on Sunday January 19 to -16 in Ironwood with the high on Monday January 20 at just -5.

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