The very air mass which dove south into the United States from the wastes of the arctic last weekend into early week, has crossed the North Atlantic and brought snow, freezing rain and ice to parts of Scotland this morning in it’s far weakened state.

A direct discharge of intense Siberian/Arctic air crossed the pole and dove south into the heart of the Continental United States bringing the coldest conditions for some, since the 1980s and 90s. This delivery of such bitter air was aided by a southward push of the polar vortex, with the southern flank of it’s circulation crossing south of the border. The intense cold of this nature is typically found between the North Pole and Hudson Bay but every so often, this permanent feature of the high latitudes get’s displaced further south than usual, often due to warming up in the polar stratosphere

Here’s a great image captured by NOAA of that displacement of the vortex and the bitter cold diving south into the US.

Here’s a look at that warming over northeast Asia which helped form the river of cold stretching from Siberia over the top of the world and down into the US.

Here’s the NOAA snow chart showing the extent of snow cover this air mass has to work with, helping it moderate minimally.

The ECMWF shows the intensity of the air mass at 5,000ft as it dove south.

In Chicago on the coldest day, the thermometer only rose to a maximum of -24C which was the coldest daytime value since the severe outbreak back in 1994. Temperatures fell to the lowest values since 1996 in Atlanta while temperatures plummeted as low as -10C down to Mobile, AL, near the Gulf Coast with even worse was wind chill values which fell below -14C as far south as North Florida.

POWER OF COLD: Here’s a stunning view of a frozen Schuylkill River in Philadelphia where temperatures plunged to a record -16C

Coldest US Air Mass In 20 Years Crosses Atlantic Bringing Snow To UK!

Thanks to a strong push of Pacific air with low pressure returning to the Pacific Northeast, the trough and frigid air mass swept off the East Coast. Over the past 3 days, it has pushed east en-route to Europe.

The below ECMWF chart for today shows the cold air at 5,000ft which represents that very air mass which shivered North America and finally reached Ireland and the Northern UK last night.

Temperatures fell quite sharply overnight across Northern Ireland and Scotland and with moisture picked up by the air mass on it’s trans-ocean journey, that meant the combination of modified arctic air and moisture brought snow as well as rain which froze onto subfreezing ground, causing some light icing.

Below are current water temperatures across the North Atlantic and around the UK and as you can see, temperatures are hovering at between 6-12C around the UK, this warm water compared to where the air mass originated from, has significantly heated this air, weakening by upwards of 90%. Note in the above ECMWF chart that the coldest air is held well back west over the open ocean and in the below water temperature chart, the colder water is well to the west where the coldest air remains.

The below SST anomaly chart shows the WARMER THAN NORMAL North Atlantic which has warmed the air from -50C over arctic Canada to -3 or -5C by the time it reached Scotland.

This air mass weakened by only about 20% over the N Plains, about 1,500 miles from it’s source and 40% as far south as Tennessee and Georgia, some 2,500 miles from it’s source due to NO WARM WATER and highly reflective SNOW COVERED ground which spanned the entire distance from the pole down to Tennessee.

Despite the significant moderation of this air mass, it’s travelled thousands of miles down North America reaching all the way to Florida and bringing the 6th coldest day ever for Tallahassee before crosses the entire Atlantic bringing snow to the UK.

Here’s the scene I awoke to this morning in Lennoxtown, central Scotland.

 

Nasty icing on pavements and roads.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

[/s2If][s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)][magicactionbox id=”18716″][/s2If]

Tags: arctic blast, Coldest air in 20 years hits US, europe cold, europe snow, polar vortex