While today will be a great day temperature-wise with increasing clouds, I'm focused on what's happening up north where the 1st part of our weekend weather change is on the way to the region in the form of a seasonably strong cold front coming towards the region. This will move in tonight with dropping temperatures. The 2nd stage is the true arctic air that arrives tomorrow night into early Sunday, and that will inject frigid air into the area for Sunday into Tuesday before it retreats for the middle of next week and temperatures moderate towards later next week. All of this is being aided by a lobe of the polar vortex will descend through the Plains and Great Lakes over the coming days injecting this frigid air mass into the area. View the latest Weather Alerts in the Kansas City region on FOX4 It will be a cold shot that while not as bad as last January, will still be an impressive air mass for mid-January. Forecast Today: Sunshine this morning, followed by clouds this afternoon. Mild with highs approaching 50°. KCI reported 3" of snow on the ground this morning, and today will help to melt more of that. Tonight: Variable clouds and getting colder. Whatever we are at 12AM will be the high for Saturday (30s) then we drop off towards daybreak or after to near 20°. Windy as well making it feel colder. Saturday: Blustery and cold. Temperatures waffle around in the 17-22° range for more of the day. Winds make it feel closer to 10° or so. Variable clouds, there should be some sunshine mixed in at times. Perhaps a flurry. For the Game: Around 22° with N winds 15+ MPH. Wind chills: 5-12° Sunday: Quite a bit of sunshine and cold with highs in the low to mid teens. Breezy as well making wind chills closer to 0° (or below). Discussion Let's enjoy today shall we. It should be mild with highs around 50°. Fabulous. Now the cold...and some of the frigid air coming towards us has a connection to the polar vortex which is in the upper layers of the atmosphere, typically way up towards Canada or the polar regions. When it gets "stretched out" in such a way, we can be vulnerable to outbreaks of frigid air and we will this time too In a way you can see the circulation of the polar vortex (PV) by going wayyyyyy up in the atmosphere to the tropopause. See the latest forecast, maps and radar for Kansas City This layer of the atmosphere separates the the troposphere from the stratosphere and marks the transition in temperatures between the two layers. Once you get into the stratosphere the polar vortex typically resides but it has influence on what's happening closer to the ground sometimes. Typically the PV is located 10-30 miles above the North Pole circulating around. At times it's more circular in nature and at times it get's "stretched out" (sort of like a rubber band). When that happens lobes of the PV can spin around and help to inject colder air into the lower part of the atmosphere. Send us your weather photos and get updates from the FOX4 Weather team on Facebook You can see how the circulation ebbs and flows by going way up into the atmosphere to see how things are circulating. See how that "U" shape dips into the region...that is a lobe of the PV that injects the frigid air into the lower part of the atmosphere. In all honesty I'm really just sort of glossing over some of this for brevity...IF you want a deep dive (and some of you may want to take one) then here is a link for more information. At the ground...we have our first cold front coming southwards into the US. In all honesty, that front isn't all that powerful, hence how tomorrow will be cold but not crazy cold. FOX4 Newsletters: Sign up for daily forecasts and Joe's Weather Blog in your inbox Colder air towards the northern reaches of Canada will continue to stream south today and tomorrow and flow into the northern US, where temperatures in the northern US will drop to 15 to 25 below by Sunday morning, with wind chills forecast to be extreme and perhaps colder than -40°! This cold air descends into the area Saturday night. Not to that degree...but still cold for sure. This cold air will be with us into Tuesday before we see it move away. Snow cover and any potential clouds will play a role in just how cold we get Monday and Tuesday morning. The snow is going to get chewed on quite a bit today with the breeze going and temperatures near 50°, we'll see what's left at the end of the day. Also, I'm watching how the model guidance is "seeing" the snow that is on the ground now. For example, the HRRR model, our short-term model that updates every hour, thinks the snow is gone from the Metro eastwards. Well, one look at the satellite and... not so much. I'll keep an eye on that. Regardless, cold is cold. This air mass will move out on Tuesday into Wednesday, and temperatures will moderate through the 30s for the end of next week BUT we're vulnerable to more injections of cold air with some arctic origins for the rest of the month. Perhaps not this cold though. Something that will be looked at more...snow. So we had the blizzard and the 2nd 1-3" system last week...but for now nothing significant is showing up for awhile except for maybe some flurries here or there. Something may try and show up towards the end of the month to watch. What's interesting about that is we'll be teeter-tottering between colder and less cold air towards then...so no idea how that will play out. Missouri news: Headlines from St. Louis, Jefferson City and across the Show-Me State Speaking of snow, some areas of the Deep South Tuesday to Wednesday next week. Some data suggests 1-6" snows are possible down there...can you imagine? Southern snow storms are rare so we'll see how this plays out because if you notice that's snow into the NW part of Florida! There would be icing concerns in there as well farther south into Florida. OK that's it for today. The feature photo comes from Bruce Fischbach out towards Prairie Highlands Joe