A massive winter storm will sweep across the country this week, bringing snow and ice as it heads east toward the Atlantic coast.
But that’s not all; forecasts call for the coldest Arctic temperatures seen in years, in what’s described as a polar vortex.
“This could end up being the coldest January since 2011 for the U.S. as a whole,” AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok said.
The first storm of the year will spread snow and ice along a 1,500 mile-long zone from the Plains, across the Appalachians and to the Atlantic coast from this weekend through next week, followed by bitter cold air according to the AccuWeather forecast.
The Northeast, including parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, were under a wind advisory per the National Weather Service, experiencing high winds with up to 50 mph wind gusts, and chilling temperatures expected to drop through the weekend. This all comes ahead of a potential snowstorm or nor’easter by early next week — Sunday evening, to impact the Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey areas.
Heavy lake-effect snow off the Great Lakes is starting to fall and expected to bury some towns under feet of snow and massive snow drifts through the weekend, including Northwestern Pennsylvania and some New York counties such as Oswego, Syacuse, Cayuga, Madison and Oneida, along with gusty winds.
The blasts of Arctic air will build into the year’s first full week of the month and linger through the middle of January, impacting more than 250 million people over 40 states in the Central and Eastern regions of the country.
AccuWeather predicts that although each layer of cold air coming may cut short of the most extreme conditions over the last 10-15 years, the number of days spent below the historical averages will add up.
Temperature outlook from Jan. 7 to Jan. 13, 2025.
“The combination of lingering neutral sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, warm water in the northern Pacific and an atmospheric traffic jam will induce multiple rounds of Arctic air east of the Rockies,” AccuWeather Long-Range Meteorologist Alex Duffus added. “The pattern creates a persistent southward lunge in the jet stream in eastern North America to allow the frigid air to empty out of the Arctic and into the central and eastern U.S.”
Periods of “stiff winds” will come with the cold blasts, pushing the temperatures to feel well below zero for extended periods.
The Arctic air will be wavy in nature and conducive to multiple storms bringing snow and ice over the next two weeks and result in major travel disruptions. The snowy pattern will vary from several feet to a few inches in parts of the Midwest to the Northeast.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Winter storm to bring deep-freeze temps to East Coast