Just before the morning ended Saturday, the wind brought a massive change in temperature from a relatively balmy morning straight to the deep freeze.

Since then the lakes region spent 44 straight hours — through days and nights — without ever reaching zero let alone positive numbers.

After the sub-zero marathon, temperatures in Brainerd rose to zero and stayed there for several hours Tuesday, even after the sun went down. Even at zero, the wind chill was 14 below.

The wind chill advisory remained in effect, with cold temperatures and wind chills of 25 below to 35 below expected Tuesday night.

The National Weather Service in Duluth reported cold temperatures will persist across the region into Thursday, when a weak weather system may bring snowfall of 1 to 2 inches or less. Wednesday should be a repeat of Tuesday with a high of zero. But it should feel colder as the wind at first light and variable starts to come out of the northwest with gusts as high as 20 mph. And expect a colder night as temperatures drop again to about 18 below, which will mean another cold morning for school and work.

Thursday’s high? Don’t expect much of a warm up. It may reach 5 degrees. Thursday night the temperature isn’t expected to plummet and may just drop a few degrees to 2 below, a relative heat wave. However, Friday night is back to double-digits as a 5 degree high in the day turns into a 16 degree overnight chill fest.

Saturday is the first night in a week when the overnight low may not drop below zero. The weather service expects a low in the neighborhood of 5 degrees.

Sunday will see the real warm up, which is now forecast to continue on Monday and to a lesser degree on Tuesday.

Enjoy it while it lasts as long-term predictions call for a colder than normal end of the month. The normal high this time of year is about 20 degrees.

By the time the warm up arrives, the region may put in five days where the daytime high never rises above 5 degrees.