Central, eastern US to crawl out of deep freeze
While there are still plenty of cold waves to get through this winter, especially in the Midwest and Northeast, much of the central and eastern United States should begin to climb out of the deepest frigid depths.
New Orleans’ famous Canal Street was frozen over by a rare winter storm on the night of Jan. 21. This man turned the frozen street into his own hockey rink as he skated around with a puck.
As the coldest air in the United States moves off over the next several days, temperatures across the central and eastern areas of the country will rebound slowly into next week, AccuWeather meteorologists say. The retreat of bitterly cold air will be accompanied by a break in the stormy pattern.
Air that originated in the northern slopes of Siberia over a week ago moved thousands of miles across the North Pole, over the frozen Arctic tundra, across Canadian Prairies and into the central and eastern United States.
The scope and magnitude of the cold air most likely reached rock bottom at midweek, and there is now the likelihood of a slow retreat out of the frigid depths of winter in the coming weeks.
Temperatures dipped well below zero Fahrenheit from much of the Upper Midwest to the interior Northeast on Wednesday morning. Temperatures as low as the single digits were experienced in the Louisiana Gulf coast and the 10s in the Florida Panhandle in the wake of the record snowstorm.
The core of the Siberian air will slide northeastward and away from North America later this week and this weekend.
"After a sustained period of severe cold, temperatures will be moderating across much of the East and Midwest over the next five to seven days," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said, after a prolonged period when temperatures were 10-25 degrees below the historical average.
However, there can still be some setbacks over the next couple of weeks, especially in the Midwest and Northeast, where brief outbreaks of Arctic air can occur.
"There could be a substantial renewed push of Arctic air and lake-effect snow towards the end of the month for the Midwest and Northeast," Pydynowski said.
Each of the waves of cold air can be accompanied by rounds of snow showers that may reach well beyond the Great Lakes region.
"This also looks like a relatively dry pattern with a dearth of any major storm threats for the Midwest and Northeast into the first half of next week," Pydynowski added. "A rainstorm sliding through the Southeast later this weekend to early next week may push moisture far enough north to give parts of the mid-Atlantic a brief snow chance sometime from Monday to Tuesday."
Looking farther ahead into February, even more of a pattern change is possible. AccuWeather's long-range team of meteorologists, headed by Paul Pastelok, expects a colder, stormier pattern to set up more for the Northwest and northern Plains, with milder air for the Southern and Eastern states.
The same pattern in February could bring a couple of rounds of rain to wildfire-ravaged Southern California in addition to the rain forecast for the region this weekend.
Depending on where the storm track sets up and residual cold air lingers, there could be some substantial mixed wintry precipitation events from the Midwest to the Northeast in February as overall warmer conditions will set up in the Southeast.
This January has been substantially, if not shockingly, colder than January 2024 in much of the central and eastern U.S.
Some of the biggest flips with temperatures have been across the Upper Midwest where there was very little to no ice on the Great Lakes last January. Temperatures in Minneapolis were nearly 6 degrees Fahrenheit above the historical average last year. This year, temperatures thus far in January have been 5.3 degrees below the 30-year average.
Last January was close to the historical average in Chicago, but the city is experiencing a similarly colder-than-average month this year.
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