Look ahead: Cold, snow and ice for Plains and Northeast

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Long-Range Expert Joe Lundberg warns of bitter cold accompanied by snow and ice expected to grip multiple regions of the U.S. including the Plains and Northeast next week.

Transcript

00:00You know who he is, the crystal ball meteorologist Joe Lumberg, and we had the rain in California,

00:06and we saw this storm coming into California from a long, long time ago. Take a listen.

00:14You're going to get hit in California with a big storm mid to late week,

00:17probably Wednesday night and Thursday, and as that comes in, you're going to bring in a lot

00:21of subtropical moisture, lots of rain, a renewed risk of flooding all the way down to Southern

00:26California. You're going to measure the snow in feet in the Sierras, several feet possible,

00:31and of course, travel delays galore associated with that system.

00:35And of course, that is coming through now, Joe, and that kind of sets the table for this storm.

00:41It really does.

00:41This storm sets the table for next week, I should say.

00:44It really does, because if that system moves inland, Bernie, what it's going to help to do

00:47is buckle the jet stream to the point where it pulls more cold air into the pattern. In fact,

00:52that's part of our three things to know about next week. Very cold air. We were talking 10,

00:5720, 25, 30 degrees below normal for much of the plains states all the way to the eastern seaboard.

01:03The good news for California, it dries out behind the storm system. However,

01:07pieces of that will evolve into another storm system that could cause

01:11problems for the southern plains all the way to the mid-Atlantic and northeast later next week.

01:15All right, let's take a look at the cold, Joe. That's what sets the table for the storm.

01:20It really does. As you see, as the weekend storm system moves up and moves through the north and

01:24east, what happens behind it? You just get this blast of Arctic air that comes down. Like I said,

01:28it's going to be below zero in parts of the northern plains. You may see some subzero

01:32nights all the way down into parts of Nebraska, Kansas, and northern Missouri,

01:35and that cold will get all the way down into Texas, across the south. I think even in northern

01:39Florida, you're going to feel the weight of it Monday, Tuesday, and into Wednesday.

01:42However, there's going to be a disturbance on the backside of this. If you look at this

01:47middle of next week, there you can see the split in the jet stream flow. Here's the main jet,

01:51but then there's the southern piece of it here. That's the disturbance that we're going to be

01:55tracking. This is, say, Wednesday. As that feature moves on through, you do expect to see some

02:00wintry weather in some of these places, maybe all the way down to the I-20 corridor.

02:03The question is going to be, where is that storm going to go? Does it move quickly out to sea to

02:08the east and we leave the northeast alone? Or is there a piece of energy in here that helps to pull

02:14this up to the northeast and spread some of that snow and ice farther north to places like Erie,

02:18Buffalo, Burlington, and Boston? That remains to be seen, but that's on the table for later next

02:23week. It's been quite a stretch, Joe. Six storms in almost two weeks. As we get toward the end of

02:31February, though, you and the long-range team, meteorologist Paul Pasolak, think there's a

02:36little bit of a break. I think so, Bernie. I think that we can take a big breath and breathe a sigh

02:42of relief because at the end of the month of February, I think you're going to close the

02:46moisture off from the Gulf of America and you're going to see less storminess and you'll see less

02:52cold in the pattern. In fact, that actually may be fairly mild for the western plains

02:56and into the Rockies and west. Long-range expert, meteorologist Joe Lumberg. Joe,

03:01thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.

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