More arctic air is coming to Wichita. Here’s how cold — and when it will warm up

After a brief warm-up this week, Wichita is forecast to see another round of arctic air starting Thursday night and stretching into the weekend.

The cold front is expected to move into the Wichita area by 6 p.m. Thursday with temperatures slowing starting to fall. The high for Thursday, 38 degrees, is expected to drop to a low of 8 overnight, a detailed forecast shows.

“By nine o’ clock or so we’re going to be flirting with roughly zero for the wind chill and then we’ll fall from there,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Baerg said in Wichita.

Friday morning will see the lowest wind chill with a forecast of minus 10 as the sun comes up. The high for Friday is expected to be 20 degrees with a wind chill of minus 9, the NWS said.

“We may spend a few hours above zero as far as the wind chills go tomorrow [Friday] afternoon,” Baerg said. “But then the the below zero wind chills come back late night Friday night into Saturday morning.”

Friday night is expected to drop to 3 degrees with a wind chill value of minus 5. Saturday morning will see another round of wind chills in the minus 10 range before things start to warm up.

“We encourage people to take the necessary precautions to stay safe and minimize your time outdoors over the next couple of mornings,” Baerg said.

Saturday’s high is forecast at 20 degrees with Sunday spiking up to a partly sunny 36 as a warming trend moves in, according to the NWS.

“Monday we’ll be pushing 40 degrees and then should be solidly in the 40s for much of the rest of the week,” Baerg said. “Sounds like summer compared to what we’ve had.”

Forecast temperatures for Monday to Wednesday currently sit between 38 to 44 degrees with a slight 20-to-30 percent chance of rain for all three days, an NWS forecast shows.