Mike,

I read that blog yesterday and made a mental list of things I need to do (more nyjer seed for the feeders, more black soil sunflower seeds for the cardinals and other song birds, etc.) before that cold front gets here. So, yes, I do think we will get significantly colder next week. Do I think we'll get as cold as the GFS model says? Not necessarily. Not when it is this far out from the actual forecasted event. If those temperature forecasts for midweek of next week look as bad next Monday as they do today, then I think we'll have a miserable last half of the week with temperatures dipping down incredibly cold in at least some parts of OK.

I expect we'll be cold, and we need to have a certain amount of cold in winter, so I'm okay with it. It isn't the weather I would have chosen, but we don't get to choose our weather. I'd rather it be warm.

I don't see a big decrease here in the bug population following a cold, dry winter, but I do see a decrease in some insects following a cold, wet winter. So, if we're going to be very cold, I hope we also can be wet.

With the rain that's in the forecast this week, some of us may be wet for a few days before it turns back colder again. Wet is so much better than dry!

One of the mets at AccuWeather has a blog post on the coming cold spell too and I've linked it below.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Brutal Cold Wave