Arctic blast the latest extreme weather to impact area

by Peter Jakey, Managing Editor

Students at local elementary schools really love donning their winter gear and diving into the snow during recess or their lunch break. With the season?s coldest temperatures, they didn?t get much of a chance to go out with wind chill factors dipping well below zero.

School officials in Posen and Rogers City started keeping the kids indoors, starting Tuesday with single digit readings and strong north winds.

As disappointed as the kids might be, because they never seem to feel the bite of the cold like most adults, the practice was to continue through the rest of the week. Cold air is expected to hang around until at least Saturday, according TV 7 & 4 meteorologist Greg MacMaster.

?WE USUALLY get one to two of them (arctic blasts) a year, so they are not uncommon to see them come in January,? said MacMaster. ?They usually last two to three days. In this case, this one is lasting about five days.?

Temperatures are expected to be 18- to 20-degrees Fahrenheit below normal. The cold temps started arriving Tuesday morning as the temperature slipped 10 degrees in about four hours.

Gerald Smigelski, superintendent/manager of the Presque Isle County Road Commission, said the cold weather makes the job of his department more difficult. Salt doesn?t work as well when the temperature slips below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. ?It takes longer for it to do its job,? he said.

A lot

of ice is already on the roads and isn?t going anywhere until some real warmer air arrives.

THE READINGS are expected to be at seven- to 15- degrees Fahrenheit below zero the next couple of days.

Tuesday morning brought another batch of lake effect snow as well. ?The lake effect usually isn?t that prevelant in January unless it is really cold and we have open water, which is what we have,? said MacMaster Tuesday morning. ?Lake effect doesn?t know what time of the year it is ? if the conditions are right ? then it starts cranking out the heavy snow. That?s exactly what we are getting right now.?

The outlook calls for a slight warm up through Monday, before settling into the upper 20s.