Powerful winter storm to bring snowy, icy conditions to Midwest, Mid-Atlantic | Global News Avenue

Meteorologists predict that severe ice and snow storms accompanied by severe cold weather will soon hit the eastern two-thirds of the United States, with frigid air escaping the Arctic and heading south toward Florida.

The National Weather Service warned Friday that millions of people will be hit by moderate to heavy snow starting Saturday from Kansas City to Washington, with at least 8 inches likely between central Kansas and Indiana.

The winter storm warning extends 1,500 miles from western Kansas to West Virginia, CBS News national weather reporter Rob Marciano reported.

Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist, said the dangerous ice was particularly deadly for power lines and was “as heavy as paste and difficult to move” in southern Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and Icy conditions are possible across much of the West. Virginia.

“It would be chaos, a potential disaster,” Moir said. “This is something we haven’t seen in a long time.”

National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Lammers said Friday that the chance of snowstorms is increasing, especially in neighboring areas of Kansas and the Central Plains, where wind gusts could reach 50 mph at times.

CBS Boston meteorologist Jacob Wyckoff indicated Friday is Northeast will miss The storm will bear the brunt of the storm, but by Monday, the mid-Atlantic could see 10 to 12 inches of snow, and even more in some areas.

“Through the mountains of West Virginia and into parts of southern Virginia, they’re going to be bullseye spots,” Wyckoff said.

Ahead of the storm, major U.S. airlines Announce During this period, they are waiving change fees and penalties for passengers. These include American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.

Hundreds of millions of people in the eastern two-thirds of the United States will be exposed to dangerously biting air and wind chills throughout the week as the storm ends Monday, government and private forecasters said. They say temperatures could be 12 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than normal as the terrifying polar vortex stretches down from high in the Arctic, bringing frigid weather with it.

“This could lead to the coldest January in the U.S. since 2011,” AccuWeather director of forecast operations Dan DePodwin said Friday. “It won’t just be one day. It will be three to five times. , with temperatures well below historical averages for a week or more in some cases.”

Danny Barandiaran, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, said the largest below-normal drops are likely to be concentrated in the Ohio Valley, but significant abnormal cold will extend as far south as Gulf Coast.

The forecasts are tempered compared with last week, when some computer models predicted the worst cold snap in decades. Barandiyaran said many cold records are unlikely to be broken now, but it could still have a significant impact on the country.

Balandiaran said Florida could even see severe icing, while areas near the Canadian border would see freezing temperatures around freezing.

“It’s not going to thaw just yet,” Mauer said.

Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Institute, said the initial high winds from the north may come as a shock after some fairly warm weather over the past few years.

“The wind chill is going to be brutal,” she said. “There will be a lot of complaining, but it’s winter…global warming doesn’t mean the cold snaps are going away.”

Part of the reason for this double dose of severe weather may be Rapidly warming Arcticas a not-so-gentle reminder climate change Francis Cohen and Judah Cohen, seasonal forecast directors at the private company Atmospheric and Environmental Research, said geese experience extreme weather, even in the winter.

The polar vortex is a spinning top of ultra-cold air that spins like a top 15 to 30 miles high, usually over the North Pole. But sometimes it escapes or extends into the United States, Europe or Asia. Many people suffer from severe colds at that time.

Cohen and his colleagues have published several studies showing increased stretching, or drift, of the polar vortex. Cohen, Francis and others published a study last month attributing these cold outbreaks in part to climate change Arctic warming four times faster than other parts of the world.

Francis said changing temperatures and the loss of Arctic sea ice are making the jet stream, the river of air that moves storm fronts, more volatile, allowing cold air to plunge southward and allowing extreme weather to linger.

Francis said what was about to happen “is a great example of this type of case.”