Breakfast brief: Winter's Big push

It looks like the Groundhog was correct earlier this month, because winter has at least one more big push of frigid weather ahead. The Breakfast Brief is published daily, Monday through Friday, at 5:00 a.m., Eastern time.

The combination of arctic air blasting southward across the Plains and the Northeast and a low pressure system moving out of the Rockies, is going to make a wintry mess across the southern Plains and central Mississippi Valley. The WeatherRadar already shows snow falling across parts of the central Plains. This will intensify throughout the day from Kansas into Kentucky, with a mix of sleet and freezing rain in the Red River Valley and the Ozarks. Rain will sweep across northern and eastern Texas.

To the north, the TemperatureRadar shows sub-zero high temperatures from Nebraska northward. This is after lows in the minus-10 to minus-20 range this morning across the Dakotas, Upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes, including Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago. Bismarck, N.D., will wake up to readings in the minus-30 to minus-25 range.

The Northwest and northern California will have a brief reprieve from Monday rain, but another round will arrive later today. The WeatherRadar shows heavier rain arriving later today.

The mildest weather will be found across Florida. Highs in Miami will be in the upper 70s while northern Florida, along with the rest of the Gulf Coast only being in the 60s. The Rest of the South, along with southern Texas and the Southwest, will only be in the 50s and low 60s today.