U.S. Forecast Full-Blown Arctic Outbreak; Snow Reaches Fourth Story In Russia; Asia Freezes Up; + Long-Duration X Flare

The COLD TIMES are returning...

U.S. Forecast Full-Blown Arctic Outbreak

Alaska is locked in one of its coldest winters in more than a century, with the Lower 48 next in line.

As mentioned last week, Fairbanks held below -19C (-2F) from Dec 13 through Jan 16 — a stretch of sustained cold not seen in over 100 years of observations (since 1918).

That Arctic reservoir is destabilizing, with its cold now set to spill south into the CONUS in what is shaping up to be the most severe winter outbreak in decades.

The models converge on a large, long-duration event beginning this weekend and intensifying through the final week of January.

Across the Midwest and Great Lakes, lows are forecast to plunge into the -34C to -37C range (-30F to -35F), with pockets approaching -40C (-40F) in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin by Saturday, Jan 24.

Several higher-resolution runs are colder still.

In Grand Rapids, some projections dip near -35C (-31F), which would obliterate the city’s all-time cold record by roughly 4C.

The air mass descending out of the Canadian Arctic, with reinforcement from a very snowy Siberia, is close to the coldest physically possible for America.