This week's storm left a wide swath of deep snow from northern Texas to southern Wisconsin. Until the snow melts, cities and towns within this belt will have lower temperatures than nearby snow-free areas. Yesterday, Wichita, Kansas, which received ten inches of snow, had a high temperature of 32 degrees while Hutchinson, a short distance to the northwest (but out of the snow belt), reached a high of 47.
Some of this cooling effect is due to the massive amount of snow itself, which refrigerates the surrounding air. In addition, the heavy snow blanket both insulates the air from the warmth of the underlying earth and reflects solar radiation, thereby reducing heat from the sun. Here in Columbia, we had a beautiful, sunny day to dig out our cars but the temperature struggled to reach the freezing mark.
