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“This first rush of arctic air brings dangerous cold, but is mostly confined to the northern tier of the states,” says CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen. “That next round of cold air for this coming weekend looks even more intense and will plunge south across much of the plains to Texas and likely bring dozens of records.”
Cold air from the start of the week will be trapped in the northern half of the United States, with sub-zero high temperatures as far south as Oklahoma. In northern Minnesota and much of Montana and North Dakota, the peaks will struggle to pass zero.
“Wind chill values well below zero and as low as (minus) 50 degrees could sometimes be felt” from Montana to Michigan’s upper peninsula, says the WPC.
Wind chill alerts are in effect early Monday afternoon for more than 5 million people. In some cases, it is so cold that frostbite can occur in just five minutes for those who are not dressed properly.
In Minneapolis, the high temperature Sunday only reached minus 3 degrees. The last time the high temperature was as cold was over two years ago, in January 2019. Temperatures climb back up to teenage years by midweek before dropping back to around freezing this weekend.
Fargo, North Dakota, is another city that hasn’t seen this kind of cold in years. Yesterday’s high was minus 8. It hasn’t been that cold since 2019 when the high was only 10 below. Highs are not expected to be as low as last weekend, but will be around the zero degree mark this week.
Meanwhile, in the southern states, temperatures will be above average and in some cases up to 20 degrees above normal for this time of year through Wednesday or Thursday.
But that will change as the week goes on.
Cold air will hit all of the continental United States
The cold air will gradually spread southward. By the weekend, all of the Lower 48 states are expected to experience below average temperatures. The only region that may still be on the warmer side of normal is South Florida.
A very slow moving cold front draped across the southern plains will serve as the boundary between high temperatures in the 1930s and 1940s in northern Texas and the 1970s and 1980s in central and southern Texas through mid of the week.
Dallas is forecast to be high in the mid-1940s on Wednesday, while Austin is expected to be in the mid-1970s. That’s a temperature difference of about 30 degrees over just over 200 miles.
The second half of this week will see temperatures peaking below zero in the northern plains. Teens and 20s are expected from the interior of the Northwest through the Central Plains, Midwest and Interior of the Northeast, with the 1940s and 50s expected in the South and Southeast.
In some cases, these high temperatures could break cold records.
Low temperatures will be even lower, all states in the contiguous United States except Florida are expected to fall below freezing.
Over the next seven days, 40 million people could experience sub-zero temperatures.
Over Valentine’s Day weekend, another explosion of dangerously cold air is expected to arrive.
The air that is colder than normal can be found in the south-central United States.
“Some areas of the Plains and Texas might be 40 degrees or more below average. Highs that are normally above freezing for this time of year will see single-digit highs,” Hennen says.
The Midwest and Northeast will likely face the cold as well. The lowest temperatures for the next seven days may not arrive until the weekend.
In New York City, the coldest temperature so far this winter was 14 degrees, recorded in late January. Over the next seven to ten days it can get even colder than that, with potentially single-digit lows.
In Chicago, highs should only be single digits. This has not happened since January 2019, when it was 1 degree.
Long-term forecasts suggest that cold will continue to dominate the weather pattern in the United States next week.
“Unfortunately, these below-average temperatures do not appear to moderate or go away for the foreseeable future,” the WPC said.
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