Tonight may very well be the coldest of winter up in North Dakota and over parts of Northern Minnesota as temps dive into the -20s and 30s but it won’t be for the Arrowhead region as they’ve managed to get down to -42 already. For Chicago it’s heading for 0 by dawn, single digits all the way to St Louis. As for the East, the cold has now arrived along the Atlantic Seaboard and tomorrow, don’#t expect to get above freezing from Boston down to DC, perhaps Richmond.

Here’s the pressure chart by tomorrow morning according to the GFS, note the big arctic high building into the eastern Plains with isobars funneling arctic air all the way towards ther Appalachains. Don’t be surprised to see lows dip into single digits all the way to the mountain of West Virginia and remember how warm it was here 2 days ago! This will support another day in single digits for Minneapolis and low teens for Chicago tomorrow.

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The GFS temp anomaly chart for the same period shows the push of arctic air all the way to the mtns of WV and NC. Highs tomorrow only warm into the upper teens and lows 20s Saturday

North Florida Freeze?

By 24 hours you can see the high continues building south into the Mid and Lower Mississippi Valley, this will hold highs to around 40 in Atlanta, mid-50s all the way to central Georgia while it’s only in the low 60s down towards Savannah and the FL border. Clear skies, light winds will bring a freeze into North Florida Saturday morning with the coldest morning yet for Atlanta (mid-20s).

Series Of Clippers Riding NW Flow Next Week

As the high spreads out, a clipper system riding the northwest flow could bring a sneaky few inches of snow across a wide swath of the Ohio Valley into the Mid-Atlantic with the central Appalachains catching the most. I admit this is further south than what I think but given the position of the high, this may get forced further south, largely missing the cities from Baltimore on north. Check this out for Sunday night.

The GFS continues to build the snowpack from Wisconsin all the way to the mtns of North Carolina. Check this out.

The ECMWF continues to hold the trough and drive arctic air into the East next week.

Fri

Mon

Wed

While the GFS is showing little cold for the US in the longer term, the major warming of the LOWER strat indicates otherwise and don’t be surprised to see the models go for a colder and colder look at we progress through Feb. Certainly the first week is cold and I believe as the PNA stays positive and the NAO and AO (thanks to the warming), goes negative, persistent shots of arctic air should drive into the eastern half of the country.

Here is the warming of the strat at 70mb I posted on earlier.

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