Given this wild and extremely amplified pattern over North America right now, it’s no real surprise that we have a very weird, wacky and ‘upside down’ weather pattern. To put it into perspective, the temperature is currently 33 at both Fairbanks, AK and New Orleans, LA where there’s a rain, sleet, freezing rain mix currently with treacherous travel on many Gulf Coast roadways including I-10.

Incredibly, temperatures climbed well into the 30s in Fairbanks this afternoon where RAIN, yes rain fell yesterday closing the airport and causing havoc on icy roadways. Today, temperatures were stuck at 31 degrees mid-afternoon all the way down to Mobile, AL with both Houston and New Orleans struggling to get out of the mid-30s while it got to near 50 in Anchorage.

SEE TODAY’S VIDEO!

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A trace of snow was recorded at Lake Charles, LA while 3″ fell in Alexandria, LA, both breaking a 1960 record for the date.

Here was the scene from Leesville, LA this morning.

 

The low of 4 degrees down in Oklahoma City this morning was not only the coldest since the arctic outbreak of February 2011 but it was also a solid 30 degrees COLDER at the time than in Fairbanks. Incredible!

This Morning’s lows

Today’s highs

Note it didn’t get out of the mid-30s in both Houston and New Orleans today!

National snow cover is well up on this time last week thanks to Northeast snowstorm, parade of clippers and of course the southern system. 42.3% is now white again.

Check out the snow cover left behind by the South Texas/Louisiana system.

While largely gone now, there is some residual ‘mixed precip’ over Louisiana including the New Orleans area as well as the Mississippi Gulf Coast tonight.

The much anticipated 2 part siege of Siberian-Arctic air starting Monday behind a clipper system will unleash the coldest air yet. The next 7 days will be the coldest of the entire winter and could be the worst end of January cold since 1979.

Check out the extremity of the amplification in this GFS ensemble 500mb height anomaly mean.

The 7 day mean temperature departures from normal are very impressive.

Note though the pull back in the following 7 days. Does this mean a return to warmth? Unlikely, it just won’t be as extreme and given the depth of cold coming, less cold will still be COLD even by January standards probably.

With changes occurring out over the Pacific and the trough axis backing west for the first week of February, we may see more involvement with the southern branch jet and yes, the probability for California rains may be on the rise..

As for snowfall over the next 5 days or so, here’s the very latest from the ECMWF through 144 hrs. Note it continues to show a South Georgia, coastal Carolina snowstorm with that 1″ line still extending into Florida!

More tomorrow!!

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Tags: arctic blast, arctic outbreak, Louisiana snow, polar vortex, Texas snow, US coldwave