It’s cold now, but the next punch of Arctic air will take it to another level. In light of the latest winter storm to sweep across the country, more than 200 million people will wake up to freezing temperatures as the coldest air of the season sweeps across the Plains, Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast. This widespread plunge puts dozens of daily records in play.
After several rounds of snow over the past week, the Midwest is now bracing for the coldest temperatures of the season.
Bitter cold from Canada descends on the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest Wednesday. High temperatures will be 15 to 25 degrees below normal and struggle to reach 10 degrees in parts of the Dakotas. More than a dozen cities in the Upper Midwest could set new daily cold record highs.
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Thursday morning will be the coldest as current air temperatures are forecast to drop into the double digits below zero as far south as Iowa and Nebraska. Wind chills of -10 to -25 will be common.
Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are each set to break the daily low temperature record on Thursday, falling to -11 degrees and -7 degrees, respectively. Cedar Rapids may only warm into the single digits above zero Thursday afternoon, which would set a new record for the coldest high temperature for the day.
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Afternoon temperatures across much of the Midwest will be stuck in the teens – 20 to 30 degrees lower than normal for early December.
Records could fall from Illinois to the East Coast Friday morning as well. Chicago could drop below its daily low temperature record of 4 degrees while Indianapolis could approach its record of 8 degrees – last set in 1886. Low temperatures will be in the teens across Pennsylvania, breaking daily records in several cities.
Friday morning will be the coldest day since early March in New York City with a low of around 20 degrees. Records may fall for the city’s JFK and LaGuardia airports. The wind chill will sting.
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Blame the polar vortex
The winter storms that hit the United States this week – and are predicted to occur over the next few weeks – may be largely linked to the displacement of the polar vortex that began in late November, researchers tell CNN.
The polar vortex is a circular current of strong wind over the Arctic that can keep cold air locked in that region. Recently, however, it has weakened and slipped southward into the mid-latitudes, spreading cold, arctic air into heavily populated areas.
That could create stormier conditions, said Andrea Lopez Lang, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as that cold air from the north collides with relatively warmer air.
And the weak polar vortex also means a wavier jet stream. These are the wind currents that flow from west to east around the Northern Hemisphere. A wavy jet stream can give people weather whiplash, said Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at MIT.
During the rest of December, we can expect frequent oscillations between milder than average conditions and frigid temperatures as the storms pass.
However, Lopez Lang warned that this polar vortex event is not the only factor behind those upcoming temperature fluctuations. “It’s definitely contributing, but it’s not the whole story,” she said.
Is this the end of the bitter cold? NOAA research meteorologist Amy Butler warned that another cold wave is expected by mid-December. “It looks like the polar vortex will become more stretched over North America in about 7-10 days,” she noted.
We’re still about three weeks away from the official start of winter, but Mother Nature is well ahead.
CNN Meteorologists Mary Gilbert and Taylor Ward contributed to this report.
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