B-B-Bitter cold snap to hit SW ND

Weather forecasters are predicting the cold snap that hit southwest North Dakota this week will get colder - a lot colder.
Expected to taper off sometime early today, the snow that lingered over Dickinson - bringing close to 3 inches of accumulation as of early evening Tuesday - will be followed by temperatures with wind chills of 40 degrees below zero later in the week, said National Weather Service meteorologist Michael Mathews.
“We’re looking at wind chills in the minus 40 degree range for Thursday night in Dickinson,” Mathews said. “Wednesday night should be almost as cold, with temperatures around minus 30. We don’t see any above-zero temperatures for Dickinson until Sunday, but the projected high then is only 1.”
Highway Patrol Sgt. Dan Haugen said Tuesday afternoon that the HP’s Dickinson office was aware of just two accidents on southwest North Dakota roadways - one a single-vehicle rollover accident along Interstate 94 in the median near South Heart and the other a report of a semi in the ditch near Beach - though the NWS predicted another 1-to-3 inches of snow in the Dickinson area overnight into Wednesday.
“One thing we’d like to remind people to do in snowy weather like this is to turn their headlights on,” Haugen said. “I saw some people driving (Tuesday) without headlights and it can be hard to see them out on the road in these conditions. As always, we also remind everyone to buckle-up.”
Nearly all of southwest North Dakota - and most of the rest of the state - remained in a winter weather advisory as of early Tuesday evening. Mathews said today’s high for the Dickinson area is slated to be just 6 degrees.
As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, Bismarck had received just 1 inch of snow.