Forecasters warned that “some of the coldest” temperatures on earth will blanket the central and eastern US over the weekend.
Weather Trader meteorologist Ryan Maue said the planet’s most extreme cold air will roll into the central and eastern United States “like a wrecking ball” this coming weekend.
“…temperature anomaly” arrives like a “wrecking ball” –> textbook “Polar Vortex” megadump of western Canadian cold pool,” the post read.
In a post on X on Dec. 9, Maue called it “a textbook ‘Arctic Vortex’ mega dump of the Western Canadian cold.”
Meanwhile, climatologist Judah Cohen, a scientist at MIT, said in an email to USA TODAY: “Some of the coldest, if not the coldest, temperatures on the globe blanket the central and eastern US over the weekend and early next week.”
“It also appears that the largest and most continuous area of cooler temperatures globally will extend from Alaska to the eastern US this coming week,” he said.
However, it has been reported that this cold blast may have been relatively short-lived.
Forecasters expect a return to more typical winter temperatures later in the month and into the new year as the polar vortex retreats back north — and La Niña returns to prominence, USA Today reported.
How is the winter expected to be?
According to the report, Chicago could “get into the 20s below freezing at some point this coming weekend,” the National Weather Service said. Even colder wind chills near 45 below are possible in the Dakotas.
Temperatures are expected to drop as much as 30 degrees below the seasonal average in many places, according to the weather service.
