A strip of newly fallen snow and ideal atmospheric conditions for cooling conspired to create major local differences for low temperature on Thursday morning. The featured map presents the combination of morning low temperature reports for airport weather stations along with a grid analysis of snow depth from the National Snow Ice Data Center. The map is centered on western Iowa and the local differences between areas with snow and without snow cover is readily evident. Snow cover is an efficient emitter of "long wave" radiation at night time and without clouds, the air close to this surface has little hope of staying warm!

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Tags:   snowcover