Lows this morning dipped to the lowest values of winter so far from North Dakota to Illinois as a storm system pushing into eastern Canada carves out the deepest trough yet. This trough has brought frigid NW winds across the Lakes which means the lake-effect snow machine is cranking as well as driving the coldest air yet into the Northeast with the core sitting overhead during Wednesday.

While it didn’t get out of the -10s over parts of North Dakota and northern Minnesota, Minneapolis appears to have only ‘warmed’ to -4, the coldest high in at least 4 years. As for snowless Chicago, the high appears to only have reaches 11 degrees. This frigid air , sets the stage for a brutally cold night under clear skies and light winds.

Thought it was cold across the Northeast today? This is nothing compared to what’s in store tomorrow and especially Wednesday as the core of coldest air pushes in from the Upper Midwest and Canada.

A clipper will bring a widespread swath of 1-3 inches of snow across the Northeast, including New York City, possibly Philadelphia tonight into tomorrow morning. It’s once this passing upper level disturbance reaches the Atlantic coast later tonight that we’re going to see the greatest snow amounts add up, north of New York City extending from Connecticut up through Rhode Island and especially Massachusetts into southern Maine. Look for a widespread 3-6 inches, including Providence and Boston with locally 12 inches near the Cape.

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Here’s the GFS snow totals by Tues AM. This chart is underdone over southern New England.

Coldest Night From North Dakota To Ohio Valley Tonight

Tonight’s lows according to weather.com.

A sub zero low in Chicago WITHOUT SNOW is pretty impressive but it could go as low as -4 or -5 tonight, even more impressive. The low in Minneapolis could push -17 tonight while International Falls pushes -35.

Check out the daytime highs tomorrow from Chicago to DC. The Washington to Boston corridor is 4-5 degrees cooler than today with mid-20s at best, feeling closer to single digits all day with a strong NW wind. Brrrrrrrr! While it’s still very cold, there is gradual warming over the Northern Plains as milder air and ridging works in from the west.

As the arctic high builds into the Northeast, so winds should ease and with fresh snow on the ground, clear skies and frigid upper air, the coldest night in 2 years settles in Tuesday night, setting the stage for a bitter day Wednesday before an even colder night comes Wednesday into Thursday.

Subzero lows will dominate New England with the zero line getting within 30-40 miles of the coast. Northern New England, especially northern New Hampshire and Maine could see -20s with a few -30s.

Tuesday night lows.

Wednesday highs.

While the mid part of this week is coldest throughout the East, more fun and games come late week with a potentially much more disruptive snow event.

A system riding the underside of the trough will bring a widespread of 3-6 inch snows across the Mid-Atlantic up into the southern Northeast with greatest totals over the mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey where as much as 8-12 inches is possible.

This will likely bring widespread travel disruption and airport delays. (more details in a post tomorrow)

Here’s the latest GFS snow projections for Friday/Friday night.

Another lobe of brutal arctic air follows on the backside of this system and will holds highs in the low 20s up and down the I-95 corridor from DC on north Saturday. This cold may drive lows into the single digits all the way to Washington Saturday night into Sunday morning.

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