Next week is going to be brutal.
By Lindsay Abrams Salon (2/22/14)Remember that time when a giant pattern of Arctic air descended over the U.S. and Canada, freezing everything in its path? Remember when it came back? Yeah, that-s all happening again.
Here-s Wunderground-s Jeff Masters, who completely buried the lede with something about a “major February thaw” across the Midwest U.S. before delving into this forecast of horrors:
Fortunately (?) for the Midwest, this week-s thaw will be short-lived, preventing the kind of major flooding that would result if all of the snowpack were to melt in a week. This morning-s runs of the GFS and European models were better able to handle the evolving upper-air pattern over the Pacific Ocean, and it appears that their earlier runs seriously underestimated the strength of a ridge of high pressure forecast to build over the Western U.S. 6 - 10 days from now. This ridge will be accompanied by a return of the cold “Polar Vortex” over the Midwest and Northeast U.S., bringing bitter cold temperatures and strong winds. Temperatures 20°F below normal will likely invade the Upper Midwest on Sunday, and gradually spread southeastwards during the week. The peak cold is predicted to occur late next week, with temperatures 20 - 35° below normal covering much of the eastern 2/3 of the country.
To reiterate, that’s temperatures 20 to 35 degrees below normal. Over much of the easter two-thirds of the country. We have six to ten days to prepare.
Here’s what it-ll look like …
Sure, we were cold the last two times around. But did we truly appreciate the might and force of the original polar vortex? This mind-blowing NASA video demonstrates just what we were dealing with …
Link to Graphics: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/22210-the-polar-vortex-is-about-to-hit-for-the-third-time
