Cool air on the way amid unusually warm winter

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- Cool air is on the way for the end of this week, with overnight lows reaching the single digits. Temperatures drop throughout the day Thursday to an overnight low of 9°. Friday warms to a high of 18°. Friday's low is 6°.

This cool air seems more frigid when compared to the rest of our mild 2020 winter. Just this month, two daily temperature records were broken. The majority of days have had above normal temperatures.

This season in South Bend is currently the second warmest winter ever, only behind winter 1932. The average high temperature for the winter season is normally 33.1°. For 2020, the average high temperature is 40.3°. We are above normal by 7.2°.

So far this winter, we have only had 11 days with a high temperature below 32°. This is way behind the normal of around 39 days each winter. Last winter there were 41 days with high temperatures below freezing, which is right on track for the normal.

Additionally, we haven't seen a single day this winter with temperatures below 0°. We don't get many each year, usually around 5 days. Last winter we had 7 days like this.

Temperatures won't get below 0° this week, but we will add to our days below freezing count. The cold snap will be over by the weekend, with high temperatures back in the mid 30s.