Cold Weather Winds — Courtesy: Shutterstock — Mia2you
With Arctic temperatures and rounds of snow for the Great Lakes and Interior Northeast, winter will return with a vengeance for the remainder of January in most of the eastern half of the United States following a brief respite. As storms travel throughout the region, higher elevations in North Carolina and Tennessee may experience snowfall as the winter chill drops in some areas of the Southeast.
From the Upper Midwest to South Florida, with the exception of Miami, temperatures will drop significantly below average. By Thursday, temperatures will be 10 to 20 degrees below normal across the whole state of Florida.
After weeks of recurrent atmospheric rivers that triggered catastrophic floods in portions of California and the Pacific Northwest, warm weather will return to the West Coast.
A dip in the jet stream will cross portions of the Upper Midwest then turn over the remainder of the eastern United States starting on Thursday and continuing into Friday.
The FOX Forecast Center predicts that both Arctic air and recurring winter storms from Canada will be able to penetrate the Lower 48 due to this dip.
The Forecast Center noted on Tuesday that “all of these systems will bring back the snowy and cold conditions, but none of them are expected to become blockbuster storms.”
Iguanas may plummet from trees when they become stunned by the cold as a result of the bitterly cold weather that will sweep deep into the Southeast on Thursday, including Florida, where temperatures may be 10 to 20 degrees below normal.
Additionally, Florida might experience its coldest day of the week on Friday morning, with freezing temperatures expected to reach as far south as Jacksonville and Daytona Beach.
“Tallahassee is forecast to be 26 degrees; meanwhile, Denver—located 1,630 miles away and at an elevation 5,155 feet higher—is forecast to be 27 degrees that same morning,” the FOX projected Center stated for perspective.
The majority of Florida will have calm winds due to the high pressure that forms over the state, which might lead to a freeze and endanger crops.
In several places, particularly in the Florida Panhandle and even South Florida, wind chills will reach the upper teens due to strong winds encircling the high-pressure system.
By Saturday, temperatures are expected to rise again, but by Sunday, another blast of arctic air will arrive, causing temperatures to drop even more, all the way to South Florida.
High temps The temperature will drop by up to 15° on Sunday and Monday.
Expectations for snow in January
This busy trend is reminiscent of much of the weather in December, when residents in traditional snowbelts in the Midwest and the interior Northeast were even drawn to the frequent snowfall.
This year, Syracuse, New York, which experiences Lake Ontario’s lake-effect snowfall each year, has already gotten more than 83 inches of snow, the most in over ten years.
Additionally, as storms move out of Canada, many of these same snowbelts along the Great Lakes could anticipate receiving several rounds of snow over the course of the next two weeks. Temperatures in places like Alabama, Georgia, and the lower Carolinas may drop sufficiently for brief winter weather, and snow should be able to reach the southern Appalachians.
The West’s respite
The West Coast, where weeks of atmospheric rivers caused disastrous unprecedented flooding in portions of Washington and California, will see a return to much-needed dry conditions as a result of this pattern shift.
The Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges have received the required snowfall from recent storms, but the rainy weather has also increased the risk of fatal avalanches.
Southeast weather whiplash
For most, the most obvious aspect of this change in weather patterns will be a startling return to the cold.
The majority of the Lower 48 has experienced temperatures that are five to ten degrees above average since the New Year.
But by Thursday morning, low temperatures in several Southeast regions will drop into the 20s, signaling the start of several weeks of bitterly cold weather across the eastern half of the nation.
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Chris began his writing as a hobby while attending Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. Today he and his wife live in the Orlando area with their three children and dog.
