If there would be a theme to start this new year, perhaps "wind chill" would be fitting.
The National Weather Service in Duluth on Wednesday extended a wind chill advisory for the Brainerd lakes area to 11 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 4, with actual temperatures overnight Wednesday to Thursday expected to drop to 19 degrees below zero and wind chills of 30 degrees below zero possible.
More of the same is expected Thursday and Friday, with high temperatures of just 1 to 2 degrees and low temperatures of 18 degrees below zero in the forecast.
It all adds up to a frigid first week of 2018.
"Very cold wind chills expected. The cold wind chills will cause frostbite to exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes," the weather service reported. "Very cold wind chills of -25 to -40 are likely across much of northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin early Friday, and some areas of far northern Minnesota could get dangerous wind chills of less than -40."
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There is, however, a respite in the offing starting Saturday and lasting through at least the early part of next week. High temperatures are forecast to reach 10 degrees Saturday, followed by 22 degrees Sunday, 20 degrees Monday and 14 degrees Tuesday. Low temperatures are expected to remain in the single digits during that time.
The average high temperature in January in Brainerd is 20 degrees and the average low is 1.7 degrees below zero. For the first three days of 2018, the average high temperature in Brainerd has been 3 degrees and the average low temperature has been 23.7 degrees below zero.
