Winter Safety and Preparedness

Satellite Shows Record Cold Outbreak Advancing Across Plains and Midwest

Infrared satellite image from Monday night into early Tuesday centered over the Midwest and Plains.

Arctic air has swept into the Plains and Midwest where it's so cold the record-breaking temperatures can be seen on satellite.

The animation above shows infrared satellite imagery from Monday night into early Tuesday over the Plains and Midwest. Infrared satellite is typically used by meteorologists to detect clouds, particularly at night when visible imagery isn't available.

It's useful for measuring the intensity of thunderstorms and eyewall convection in tropical cyclones since it samples the temperature of clouds. The colder the cloud top detected, the higher the cloud.

The purple, blue and green shadings advancing eastward over the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes in the animation show how infrared satellite imagery detects cloud cover.

To the west, or left, of the cloud cover you can see another area of light purple and white shadings advancing south and east through the Great Plains and upper Midwest. That's not cloud cover, but rather bitterly cold air taking over parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Colorized infrared satellite imagery is used to detect the temperature of cloud tops and it will occasionally show areas of very cold air. This is something more commonly seen in the U.S. during the heart of winter, not in November.

Single-digit temperatures were widespread over the Plains and Midwest Monday night into Tuesday morning. A few spots even dropped below zero. Those temperatures are roughly 20 to 30 degrees below average for this time of year.

(MORE: Record-Breaking Cold Takes Over Central and Eastern U.S.)

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