Winds higher than fifty miles an hour are blowing across the Nebraska and into Iowa today (Monday). National Weather Service forecaster David Eastlack says weather maps show some strong high and low-pressure fronts battling it out. He says over the northern plains there’s a deep low-pressure zone, and when there’s a “tighter pressure gradient” with great temperature differences between hot and cold air-masses, causing high and low pressure zones, they try to equalize themselves, with higher windspeeds. Eastlack says there’s no connection to our lack of snow cover across the plains of the midwest, and also no particular reason we’ve seen several extremely windy days in recent weeks. Montana and Nebraska’s panhandle were scoured most of the day with winds forty and fifty miles an hour and more, and they won’t relent much overnight. The model’s suggesting tonight the greatest wind will be across the Dakotas, Minnesota and parts of northern Iowa but there probably won’t be much south of Des Moines. The winds Tuesday are more likely to be a chilly ten to 20 miles an hour, but nothing like the 55-mile gusts that hammered western Nebraska today. The forecaster was asked to cast an eye out for any hope of a snowfall by Christmas. Another cold blast is coming down later in the week but it looks like a dry one, with no chance for a White Christmas in this area.
