It’s not been this cold in Fairbanks, Alaska for six years. Saturday morning’s low temperature plunged to 50 degrees below zero. The same day was also the first time in three years that the 24-hour max temp did not rise above minus 40. Minus 40, by the way, is the temperature at which the most [...]
Rolling blackouts are what we awoke to this morning in Houston. The outdoor thermometer read 26° and the power companies are struggling to keep pace with demand. The house was still warm and it certainly wasn’t the end of the world — this New England Yankee can handle some cold! But my cats seemed to [...]
Snow, ice, wind, cold, prolonged cold. It’s all in the near future for many areas not used to seeing such weather extremes.
There are still lots of questions about what will happen when next week’s Arctic air mass pushes south across the Plains (when, how cold, where). And because substantial overrunning of warm, humid Gulf air is expected, additional questions muddy the situation (rain, snow, freezing rain, when, where).
Let’s talk about the South, where it’s about to get cold. Real cold. We first mentioned this a few days ago, but confidence was low as the event was still quite some time away. Although we’re still talking about next week, our forecast confidence is increasing and more computer models are starting to hint at the outbreak.
Temperatures and an upper-level storm system tied to a surface low pressure center will quickly move from the central Plains to off the coast of the Northeast between Wednesday and Friday while transitioning from a Plains and Midwest snowstorm to a nor’easter — the third nor’easter in about three week’s time.
There are lots of questions this morning about the next Arctic air mass and a deep, upper-level storm system approaching from the west. One thing not in question however, is that this air mass is significantly colder than last week’s.
There is little change in the forecast over the next several days as a large Arctic airmass develops over western Canada this weekend then spills southward over the Lower 48 next week. The good news is, as of this morning and yesterday afternoon, some of the forecasting data has backed off a bit on the overall intensity of the cold air. However, much colder air is still expected to move across the eastern half of the nation next week bringing well below normal temperatures to many areas — including many areas of the Deep South unaccustomed to such prolonged cold.
If you read YOURWEATHERBLOG yesterday, you’re already aware of the potential for an Arctic blast of cold air across most of the U.S. next week. Long-range models have been indicating this for several days, but thankfully today the airmass doesn’t look quite as cold as it did yesterday due to a subtle change in the [...]
We’ve just posted a new 2 1/2-minute video detailing what we expect out of next week’s “Arctic Outbreak.” Click to view the forecast. ImpactWeather meteorologists expect it to pack quite a punch. Despite that fact, I’ll from refrain from calling it Arctipalypse or Arctigeddon.