Gusty Winds, Cold Temperatures Hit Central Indiana
INDIANAPOLIS –Gusty winds and colder temperatures settled into central Indiana Monday following a powerful cold front that swept through the region overnight, bringing an abrupt end to unseasonably warm weather and setting the stage for a chilly week ahead.
“We’re going to stay chilly for this coming week, but it’s not going to be anything that’s really abnormal for the middle of winter,” said Mike Ryan of the National Weather Service. “We’re in the 20s today. We’ll see some recovery on Tuesday, then drop back down into the 20s later in the week before we start to rise again into the 30s over the weekend.”
The temperature swing follows a dramatic change over the past 24 hours. Indianapolis reached 67 degrees Sunday, near a record for the date, before temperatures plunged behind the front late Sunday night.
The most immediate concern Monday has been the wind. Ryan said wind chills are low because of sustained strong winds that developed overnight.
“We’ve had routinely 45 to 50, even close to 55 miles per hour over the last several hours,” he said. “That’s going to continue for the majority of the morning.”
Winds are expected to gradually ease later Monday, though breezy conditions will linger into the evening.
“Instead of talking about 45 mph, we’ll be talking more about 20 to 25 mph,” Ryan said.
Light snow flurries or brief snow showers are possible Monday, especially during the first half of the day, though forecasters do not expect any impacts.
Looking ahead, forecasters are monitoring the potential for snow on New Year’s Eve.
“There are increasing signs that we’re going to see some snow during the evening into the early overnight on New Year’s Eve,” Ryan said. “That could produce very light accumulation, just something to be aware of for people who are out and about celebrating. It might surprise you.”
The volatile weather pattern is the result of extreme temperature contrasts. Ryan noted that similar setups have occurred in recent years.
“You can go back just three years ago. We had a very strong cold front come through a couple days before Christmas and saw temperatures drop 30 to 40 degrees over about a 68-hour period,” he said. “That’s similar to what we saw last night.”
While severe weather is uncommon in winter, Ryan said it can happen when unusually warm air collides with a sharp surge of cold air.
“When you’re 30 degrees above normal for highs, normal highs are in the mid-30s this time of year, and you have that level of warmth with a lot of cold behind the front, that extreme temperature change leads to volatility in storms,” he said. “That’s what drove the strong storms last evening, the very strong wind gusts overnight and the rapid temperature drop.”
Forecasters say conditions should gradually stabilize as the week progresses, with more seasonable temperatures returning by the weekend.
