Paul Dorian
By early Tuesday, January 21st, much of the nation will be in the deep freeze with a large chunk of the Northern US likely below-zero. Temperatures in the big cities along the I-95 corridor can drop all the way into single digits for low temperatures on Tuesday morning. Map courtesy NOAA, weathermodels.com (Dr. Ryan Maue, X)
Overview
An Arctic invasion with a Siberian connection will get underway by the early part of the weekend as bitter cold air from Canada plunges southward through the central states. By Sunday, the Arctic air mass will spread eastward towards the Atlantic seaboard and by the time we get to Monday, Inauguration Day, most of the country will be in a deep freeze including the DC metro where outdoor activities are planned for the swearing-in ceremonies. Temperatures are going to fall to well below-normal levels across much of the nation for the bulk of next week which is quite impressive indeed considering this is right around the time of year with the lowest “normal” temperatures.
The Arctic front at the leading edge of the cold air outbreak will reach the eastern states on Sunday and a wave of low pressure is likely to form right along its boundary zone. This Arctic wave could produce some accumulating snow in the Mid-Atlantic region from later Sunday into Sunday night. Another storm system could develop way down in the Gulf region by the middle of next week potentially bringing snow and ice to parts of the southern and eastern US. Looking ahead, there is even the chance for a third system to form across the southern states by the end of next week.
Some of the air that reaches the Mid-Atlantic region early next week will have its origins from the other side of the North Pole over Siberia. Indeed “backward trajectory” models trace the origin of air parcels that reach the Mid-Atlantic region by Tuesday, January 21st, back to a land mass that is known for its brutally cold air this time of year. Plot courtesy NOAA
Arctic blast arrives early this weekend
The colder-than-normal weather pattern that began earlier this month across the central and eastern US not only looks like it will be extend through the third week of January, but it is going to go to more extreme levels. The upper-level pattern across North America has evolved into one that can produce “cross-polar” flow allowing for Siberian air to cross the North Pole and drop into Canada and the US in coming days. The outbreak of Arctic air will get underway early this weekend over the central states and the bitter cold air mass will plunge southward all the way into the heart of Texas by late Saturday. On Sunday, the Arctic front at the leading edge of the Arctic air mass will slide into the eastern states and its progression will likely slow down across the southeastern states. Energy will rotate through an upper-level trough and this will open the door for an Arctic wave of low pressure to form along the frontal boundary zone. That low pressure system would push northeastward into increasingly colder air and it can produce accumulating snow or rain changing to accumulating snow in the Mid-Atlantic region by later Sunday into Sunday night…perhaps on the order of a few inches.
An Arctic frontal boundary zone will slide into the eastern states on Sunday and energy (circled region) pushing through an upper-level trough can help to generate an Arctic wave of low pressure. This system can then push northeastward later Sunday into an increasingly cold air mass. As such, there is the chance of accumulating snow from later Sunday into Sunday night across portions of the Mid-Atlantic region and Northeast US. Map courtesy Canadian Met Centre, tropicaltidbits.com
Inauguration Day (Monday) weather
By Monday, January 20th, the bitter cold air will be firmly established across much of the nation, and this includes in the DC metro region where outdoor activities are planned for the Inauguration Day ceremonies. Temperatures are likely to be not far from 20 degrees at noontime on Monday in the DC metro area and there will be a biting wind to make it feel even colder than the actual air temperatures. Temperatures on Monday night could drop into single digits along the DC-to-Philly-to-NYC corridor and to below-zero levels over a huge part of the northern US.
It was so cold on January 20th, 1985 that all outdoor activities for Ronald Reagan’s second swearing-in ceremony were cancelled. Temperatures were in single digits at the noon swearing-in time in Washington, D.C. on January 20th during what was an extremely cold Arctic air outbreak. Map courtesy NOAA
The most recent Inauguration Day that was impacted considerably by the weather took place in January of 1985 for Ronald Reagan’s second term. It was so cold on that day in Washington, D.C. with an Arctic outbreak into the eastern states that all outdoor activities were cancelled. The outside temperature at noon on January 20th was only 7°F and wind chills during the afternoon were in the -10 to -20°F range. That particular cold wave in January 1985 happened to follow a major stratospheric warming event that got underway during December of 1984.
On the eve of JFK’s inauguration in 1961, eight inches of snow fell on Washington, D.C. causing the most crippling traffic jam the District had ever seen up to that point of time with hundreds of cars abandoned on the local roadways. By sunrise on the 20th, the snow had ended, and the skies were clearing, but the day remained bitterly cold. An army of men worked all night to clear Pennsylvania Avenue and despite the cold, a large crowd turned out for the swearing-in ceremony and inaugural parade. At noon, the temperature was only 22°F and the wind was blowing from the northwest at 19 mph making it feel like 7°F above zero. (For some excellent information on “Inauguration Day weather” visit this NWS site).
With cold air about to plunge again all the way into the Deep South, there chance for more than an inch of snow is “non-zero” all the way down to the Gulf coast by the end of next week. Map courtesy ECMWF, Weather Bell Analytics
Mid-week and late week storm threats
It’ll remain brutally cold on Tuesday across much of the nation (below-freezing temperatures all the way down to the Gulf coast) and a new wave of energy will head towards the south-central states. Given the expectation of an active southern branch of the jet stream, low pressure may indeed form over the Gulf of Mexico by the middle of next week and this system could then push to the northeast towards the eastern seaboard. With cold air firmly entrenched all the way down to the Gulf coast, this system could produce significant accumulating snow and crippling ice all the way down into the Deep South and potentially farther to the north and east as it pushes towards the east coast. Looking ahead, there may be yet another wave of energy headed towards the south-central states by later next week and this too can help to spin-up a storm system near the Gulf coast by the end of next week.
For some good news…only 25 days until spring training begins.
Meteorologist Paul Dorian
Arcfield
arcfieldweather.com
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In totally unrelated news, Al Gore is doing a speaking tour of the contiguous US…
Did he draw his own map of the country?
And does he travel across it by superhighway?
Remember, it’s global warming that causes the cold. John Holdren said so.
Here it is:
The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes
” [T]he kind of extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues. …
[T]he odds are that we can expect, as a result of global warming, to see more of this pattern of extreme cold …“
As they say, “You can’t make this stuff up”
Why would you think that altering the DeltaT between the Equ and poles will not alter the position and strength of Jet streams (if you do) ?
It is the PJS that is dragging down the frigid air from the NP.
Raising the GMST affects how the atmosphere responds – it is not homogeneous.
You know the cause of all the atmospheric interactions, do you?
I’m skeptical.
Decreasing the temp difference between the poles and the tropics, will dramatically slow the jet stream.
As to where the jet stream is and how it behaves, nobody knows, therefore those who proclaim that it will do one thing or another, are liars.
Nah.
“Coupled, non-linear, chaotic systems” don’t change their behaviors much at all.
As Anthony and Wazza told us all here just a few days ago.
🤡🤡
Cmon Mark don’t be so naive. We all know it’s the CO2’s fault.
Interesting word choice – “Altering” Delta T.
Do the models expect Delta T to be increasing or decreasing?
Thanks, Steve.
Of course that illogic is complete nonsense. A warming world results in LESS temperature differential between polar areas and equatorial areas, the temperature (energy) differential being that which drives storms
Can we hope that the speeches of the politicians will be cut short?
We can live in hope, but politicians love the sound of their own voices !!!
Never get between a politician and a microphone! 😁
No worries, hot air is never in short supply in DC.
Unlikely, the state and podium are likely to be heated.
If I could hear Trump call Jeb Bush “low energy” one more time I would stand in the cold and listen.
NOAA Forecast vs. Reality
Just a nit. The NOAA is a forecast for the entire month. We are a tad past halfway.
Given it is a monthly average or mean value, it is not impossible for the month to match the forecast even though the first half does not.
At this moment it is comparing oranges to tangerines.
The forecast is for this cold wave to stick around for a week or so. That leaves just one week to recover the average.
I know that. Thanks.
The point was the two charts are not comparable due to time frame context.
I’m willing to bet the discrepancy will be even larger by the end of the month.
As the late great Bob Uecker would say, NOAA is just a tiny bit off.
From the movie, the full and correct quote is “Juuuust a bit outside! He tried the corner and missed.”
Classic!
I was happy to see NOAA put in a key for the colors they used.
… then they used just 3 of 16 color options on the map?
Also in key, darker gray includes 50%, but solid white is “equal chances”. Hmmm.
No Connection to AMOC 😀
Atlantic overturning inferred from air-sea heat fluxes indicates no decline since the 1960s
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is crucial for global ocean carbon and heat uptake, and controls the climate around the North Atlantic. Despite its importance, quantifying the AMOC’s past changes and assessing its vulnerability to climate change remains highly uncertain. Understanding past AMOC changes has relied on proxies, most notably sea surface temperature anomalies over the subpolar North Atlantic. Here, we use 24 Earth System Models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) to demonstrate that these temperature anomalies cannot robustly reconstruct the AMOC. Instead, we find that air-sea heat flux anomalies north of any given latitude in the North Atlantic between 26.5°N and 50°N are tightly linked to the AMOC anomaly at that latitude on decadal and centennial timescales. On these timescales, air-sea heat flux anomalies are strongly linked to AMOC-driven northward heat flux anomalies through the conservation of energy. On annual timescales, however, air-sea heat flux anomalies are mostly altered by atmospheric variability and less by AMOC anomalies. Based on the here identified relationship and observation-based estimates of the past air-sea heat flux in the North Atlantic from reanalysis products, the decadal averaged AMOC at 26.5°N has not weakened from 1963 to 2017 although substantial variability exists at all latitudes.
Global circulation models are flatly the wrong approach.
The ocean has tremendous thermal mass. A heat sink model where the ocean exchanges (intakes and releases) thermal energy with the atmosphere plus the dynamics of water phase change (and H2O dipole moment) is better.
A 25 km grid is inadequate for a multitude of reasons.
Siberia is a red herring. I sense the hand of Greenland in this. Such aggression cannot go unanswered.
Trump needs to buy Greenland soon!
And deport there all illegal aliens… it will be called
MadagascarGreenland Plan.“The Madagascar Plan (German: Madagaskarplan) was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar.”
Every year in mid to late January and into mid February there is an arctic cold blast that brings sub-zero temperatures to the Great Lakes regions and then south and east ward.
It used to be called the Jet Stream. I don’t know what they call it these days.
Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s it was call the Siberian Express.
That, of course was when we were trying desperately trying to find ways ways to avoid the next ice age. John Holdren was calling for us to send all of our earnings to the government so the they could spread soot over the Arctic ice cap so that some of the ice would melt.
Seems to me that any time the solution is the same, no matter the problem is a solution looking for a cause.
“Every year in mid to late January and into mid February there is an arctic cold blast that brings sub-zero temperatures”
Yes, just like clockwork.
The U.S. normally gets one and sometimes two arctic air excursions during the winter. January 15, is the coldest period of winter in the Northern hemisphere, so it is not unusual to get cold temperatures at this time.
The current arctic excursion is nothing like the extreme cold front that hit us in 2021 and took down the Texas grid. Today’s particular weather is not that cold in comparison, although there is a lot of snow connected with this cold front. And the jet stream is limiting the really cold air to the Northeast United States, like it has been doing all winter.
And, even though this particular cold front is not particularly cold or severe, I saw yesterday where Public Service Company of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Gas & Electric are both putting out press releases advising people on how to cut back on their electricity usage. They are not saying the Oklahoma grid is in jeopardy of blackouts from the cold, but why else would they be suggesting that in this cold period that people should be thinking about cutting back on their electricity usage?
These gd windmills have to go! They are putting all our electric grids in jeopardy.
I didn’t hear this from Trump myself, but it was reported this morning that Trump said he didn’t want to see even one more windmill installed while he is president. I hope that’s what he said! Because I don’t want to see any more installed, either, ever.
Here is a Nullschool picture of the air temperatures. As you can see, the really cold air is not in the U.S. other than up in the Northeast. The jet stream is serving as a wall keeping the really cold air north of the Canadian/U.S. border.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2025/01/17/1300Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-43.04,26.91,486
I wish to publicly thank Canada for taking this one, for the team.
Sometimes supermarket clerks ask if I want to round up to donate to charities . If I lived in Manitoba I’d round up every trip for a charity that burned charcoal behind the supermarket to release (hopefully) warmth-causing CO2 gasses.
I hear a battery facility at Monterey went up in smoke.
Could be useful. Got a link?
Google….?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14295791/fire-moss-landing-California-evacuations.html
By my reckoning, that’s 3 or more fires at Moss Landing in the recent past. This one looks huge.
One of several using duckduckgo
DW – This may help
Emergency teams face challenges removing EV batteries from fire-damaged areas, exposing critical gaps in disaster response & environmental safety protocols….
Source
Presumably, Solar + batteries in private dwellings were also an issue.
Different kinds of batteries — PV offgrid systems are almost invariably lead-acid instead of lithium-ion because of costs.
If the house burned down, the solar panels are unlikely to be producing power anymore. If the house didn’t burn down, there is no need for fire fighters to be worrying about the batteries.
Again
Average temps are rare not normal.
Yes , And every temperature that is not a record temperature is a normal temperature !
;).
Average temperatures, like a 24-hr clock that has stopped working is right once per day, occur once per day.
It will certainly be bitter on inauguration day for some…LOL!!
Yeah, Trump’s election messed up Michelle’s hopes that Barack would be able to take over the United States through the back door.
Trump is going to board that back door up.
Dirty deeds.
On the drive to work this morning, the radio was blaring out alarms for the dangerously cold weather. Intersperse were news reports of Scientists warn that global warming is rising at a critical rate with CO2 50% higher than before we started burning fossil fuels and 2024 was the hottest year on record..
I was careful not to laugh as due to daylight savings time there is this big yellow ball of blinding light just over the hood of my car. Yes, I have sun blocking lens attachments for my glasses.
I remember when Robert Frost tried to recite a poem at John Kennedy’s inaugural. The intended poem was new and printed but the sun-on-snow and wind prevented the old man from reading. He recited another poem from memory.
This coming Monday the weather will be nasty in D.C.; a frequent occurrence in late January.
20°F with gusts to 32mph
My suggestion is to move election day to October 1st and Inaugural Day to the following Monday. In 2024 the dates were Tues 1st, and Mon. 7th.
WUWT could start a petition. 🤠 [re-posted from Linnea’s latest]
Not a good plan. Insufficient time to count and certify the votes, ignoring the potentials for legal challenges, etc. We are barely able to do an adequate job in the 2 months currently allotted. 6 days would be quite insufficient.
Remember, Genocide Joe got the most votes evah in 2020. Evah!
Ya gotta ask, why? In most countries the whole shebang is done and dusted by the next day at the latest. and I’m not talking about those countries where the outcome precedes the election.
One month, following the winter solstice is typically the coldest day of the year. This is year is vying to be normal.
This seasonal cold blast should be good for…
1) return to the office orders in DC
2) day one repeal of many EPA overreach regs
3) day one repudiation of the Paris Climate Agreement
4) and day one rebuke of network global warming hype
5) a dip in GAT…
😉
Damn Russians… they use climate warfare
I am going to make a coat out of CO2 for warmth.
Even here, map-diagram-SNOW is red and NOT-map-diagram-SNOW is blue.
I’ve said it too often but I don’t see how Russians and Canadians can be anti-AGW. Siberia? Northwest Territory? A few degrees of AGW would have to count as “a good start”.
What else would be surprising at this time of year? If this were mid-July and heat waves affected much of the continent, would that be extraordinary even if the alarmists tried to convince who ever bothers to listen to them that this was incontrovertible evidence of global warming (man-made, of course). So now we have the opposite, though it’s hardly evidence of a developing ice age. For where I live in southern Manitoba, I’ll take winter storms and sub-zero temperatures over tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides, and wildfires any day because none of the winter inconveniences has ever wiped out any of my homes or caused them any damage. Just dress for them, and prepare your house and car for them, and you’ll survive just fine.
A large amount of ozone can be seen in the stratosphere over Canada. Ozone in winter is not evenly distributed along the polar vortex because it is diamagnetic. As a diamagnetic, it is repelled by the magnetic field, which in recent years has been strengthening over Siberia and weakening over North America.
Ozone is a heavier gas than air in the stratosphere and as a wave it descends into the troposphere, causing changes in the air circulation in winter.
This will be the pattern of the polar vortex in the lower stratosphere in the coming days.
https://earth.nullschool.net/?fbclid=IwY2xjawH4aeFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdQejnfLW9FmFpe-uJA2wVopFUWTKqUHwDwX-JVsjOlqNHnhT5KjtizsMg_aem_1Nb1HFHeVfIdneScYjccQA#2025/01/20/1600Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-102.56,79.75,347
This will be the distribution of ozone in high latitudes. You can see that ozone is being pushed down from Siberia over the North Pacific.
Ozone is diamagnetic and is pushed out by the stronger geomagnetic field.
This is not a one-season situation, but a steady trend.
Such is the distribution of air masses over North America now.
Snowstorm over the Gulf of Mexico in Texas and Louisiana on January 21. On a stationary front, this could be a large amount of precipitation.
Arctic air reaches Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. The night in these states will already be very cold.
