Meteorologists predict a fierce blizzard followed by brutally cold conditions will soon engulf the eastern two-thirds of the United States as cold air moves out of the Arctic and falls south to Florida.
The National Weather Service warned Friday that starting Saturday, millions of people from Kansas City to Washington are set to be hit with moderate to heavy snowfall — including a high chance of at least 8 inches of snowfall between central Kansas and Indiana.
According to CBS News national weather correspondent Rob Marciano, a winter storm advisory extends 1,500 miles from western Kansas to West Virginia.
The dangerous ice is especially deadly to power lines — “so heavy like paste, it's hard to shake off,” said Ryan Mau, a private meteorologist who described it in southern Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and much of the West. Likely to be established right in the south. Virginia.
“This is going to be a mess, a potential disaster,” Maui said. “This is something we haven't seen in a long time.”
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National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Lammers said Friday that the potential for blizzard conditions is increasing, especially in Kansas and neighboring parts of the central Plains, and wind speeds could reach 50 mph at times. .
CBS Boston meteorologist Jacob Wyckoff told Northeast on Friday you will miss The storm's wrath, but some areas in the Mid-Atlantic could get 10 to 12 inches or more of snow by Monday.
“Through the mountains of West Virginia, into parts of southern Virginia, they're going to be bullseye spots,” Wyckoff said.
Before the storm's arrival, major US airlines announced They were waiving change fees and penalties for passengers during this period. This included American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.
Government and private forecasters said that as the storm moves through Monday, millions of people in the eastern two-thirds of the country will be exposed to dangerous bone-chilling wind and chill throughout the week. He said temperatures could be 12 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit colder than normal as the dangerous polar vortex spreads down from the high Arctic and brings wintry weather.
“This could lead to the coldest January for the U.S. since 2011,” Dan DePodvin, director of forecasting operations for AccuWeather, said Friday. “It's not just a matter of one day. It's going to be three to five days, in some cases a week or more, of temperatures that are well below historical averages.”
Danny Barandiran, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center, said the largest below-normal declines are likely to be concentrated in the Ohio Valley, but significant unusual cold will extend south to the Gulf Coast.
Forecasts have dropped slightly from last week when some computer models predicted the worst cold in decades. It is now unlikely that the cold will break many records, but it will still have a major impact on the country, Barandarian said.
Barandarian said Florida should also get freezing temperatures, while areas near the Canadian border will be near zero.
“It's not going to melt for a while,” Maui said.
Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Institute, said that after a lot of heat in the last few years, the initial strong winds coming from the north may surprise people.
“The wind chill is going to be brutal,” he said. “There will be a lot of whining, but this is winter… just because the world is getting warmer doesn't mean this cold is going away.”
This double dose of bad weather may have partially triggered rapidly warming arcticThis is serving as a very gentle reminder Climate change Francis and Judah Cohen, seasonal forecasting directors at the private firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research, said the swan season is at its peak, even in winter.
The polar vortex, a ridge of ultra-cold air 15 to 30 miles high, usually persists over the North Pole. But sometimes it expands or spreads to the United States, Europe, or Asia. And that's when large numbers of people get an intense dose of cold.
Cohen and colleagues have published several studies that have observed an increase in the drag or wandering of the polar vortex. Cohen, Francis and others published a study last month that attributed these cold outbreaks in part to changes in The Arctic is warming four times faster Compared to the rest of the world.
Changes in temperatures and shrinking Arctic sea ice cause the jet stream – the river of air that propels storms – to become wavy, pushing cold air southward and causing extreme weather, Francis said.
“What's about to be hit is a very good example of these types of cases,” Francis said.