Dry weather will continue until Friday at the earliest, as we enjoy a bit of a thaw.

Today is the coldest day of this workweek. Even though skies are mostly sunny, a cold air mass remains entrenched over eastern KELOLAND giving us teens and 20s. Western South Dakota is significantly warmer, with Rapid City in the 50s.

Skies will remain clear tonight, and a light south breeze will try to ward off a huge temperature drop. In fact, overnight lows will probably occur during the evening – in the single digits to teens – with temperatures steady or rising overnight.

Tomorrow will be partly cloudy, with a brisk westerly breeze driving warm air in from the west. Highs will be much above normal, in the low to mid 40s East River, to the upper 40s to low 50s in the west.

Warm air remains in place on Wednesday as the winds die down. Looking for the upper 30s to low 40s East River, warming to the mid 50s in western South Dakota.

Temperatures will remain about the same on Thursday, though clouds will thicken ahead of an incoming clipper-type system, a fast mover coming in from the northwest.

Friday will be our best and only chance of snowfall this week. As with most systems coming in from the northwest, amounts will be limited – an inch or two. But it will also be breezy, which could cause a few issues. Temperatures will also cool back into the 30s with the passage of this system.

A few light snow showers may linger into Saturday, which will also see temperatures fall back to normal, in the mid to upper 20s, in eastern KELOLAND. Rapid City, with a glancing blow from the system, should quickly return to the 40s.

Sunday looks like the nicer day of the weekend, as we warm above average, the low to mid 30s East River and upper 30s in the west.

Looking ahead to next week, it looks like we’ll have another surge of much cooler air for the second half of next week, continuing through the following weekend (January 22-23).