It’s cold right now, but the next wave of arctic air will take it to another level. After the latest winter storm across the country, more than 200 million people will wake up to frigid temperatures as the coldest air of the season moves across the Plains, Midwest, Great Lakes and into the Northeast. The broad-based plunge set dozens of daily records.
After several rounds of snow over the past week, the Midwest is now bracing for some of the coldest temperatures of the season.
A bitter freeze from Canada descends on the Northern Plains and upper Midwest on Wednesday. High temperatures will be 15 to 25 degrees below normal, with parts of the Dakotas struggling to reach 10 degrees. More than a dozen cities in the upper Midwest could hit new daily highs.
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Thursday morning will be the coldest, as actual temperatures are expected to drop into double digits below zero as far south as Iowa and Nebraska. Wind chills of -10 to -25 degrees are common.
Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are set to break single-day low temperature records on Thursday, dropping to -11 degrees and -7 degrees respectively. Temperatures in Cedar Rapids will only climb into the single digits above zero Thursday afternoon, which would set a new record for the coldest high temperature of the day.
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Afternoon temperatures will remain in the teens across much of the Midwest, 20 to 30 degrees below normal for early December.
Records are also likely to drop Friday morning from Illinois to the East Coast. Chicago could fall below its daily low temperature record of 4 degrees, while Indianapolis could approach the 8-degree record set in 1886. Low temperatures in Pennsylvania will reach the teens, which will break daily records in several cities.
Friday morning will be the coldest day in New York City since early March, with lows around 20 degrees. Records at the city’s JFK and LaGuardia airports may be broken. Wind chill stings.
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Blame it on the polar vortex
The winter storms that hit the United States this week and are expected to occur in the coming weeks may be largely related to the displacement of the polar vortex that began in late November, researchers told CNN.
The polar vortex is a circulating stream of strong winds over the Arctic that can trap cold air in the region. Recently, however, it has weakened and slid south toward mid-latitudes, leaking cold Arctic air into densely populated areas.
That could create stormy conditions as cold air from the north collides with relatively warm air, said Andrea Lopez Long, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A weaker polar vortex also means the jet stream is more choppy. These are wind currents that flow from west to east across the Northern Hemisphere. Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the wavy jet stream could bring intense weather stimulation to people.
For the rest of December, we can expect temperatures to fluctuate frequently between below-average conditions and frigid temperatures as storms arrive.
However, Lopez-Long warned that this polar vortex event is not the only factor behind the coming temperature swings. “It certainly contributes, but it’s not the whole story,” she said.
Is this the end of the cold? Amy Butler, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), warned that another cold shock wave is expected in mid-December. “It does look like the polar vortex will become more extended over North America in about seven to 10 days,” she noted.
We’re still about three weeks away from the official start of winter, but nature is already a step ahead.
CNN meteorologists Mary Gilbert and Taylor Ward contributed to this report.
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