'Painful to be outdoors': Cold snap in weather forecast for East Coast
Hey East Coasters − it's about to get cold. Very cold.
"In the Northeast, New England, the mid-Atlantic and parts of the central Appalachians and eastern Great Lakes region, this will likely be the coldest air of the season so far from late Friday to Sunday," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bob Larson said in an online forecast. And in parts of the Southeast, the cold air coming in late this week and this weekend could also rival season lows so far.
The cold winds will make it feel as if it's well below freezing in most places, Weather.com warned.
The National Weather Service said that the "arctic airmass should bring daytime highs down to as much as 15 to 20 degrees below normal for especially parts of the Northeast and close to that in the mid-Atlantic."
Some relatively good news: Forecasters say the worst of the intense cold should be over by the middle of next week.
'Painful to be outdoors'
The cold will be shocking: "When combined with gusty winds in the wake of a strengthening Alberta clipper storm on Thursday, it will feel painful to be outdoors for a significant length of time if not properly dressed from the central Appalachians to the mid-Atlantic coast and New England from Friday to Saturday night," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines said.
Fans at college football playoff games in the Midwest this weekend should be bundled up and prepared for freezing temperatures and gusty winds, AccuWeather warned.
In the nation's coldest big city, Minneapolis, the weather service said highs in the single digits to teens and lows below zero look likely for Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, the chill will even make it down to balmy South Florida, where the weather service in Miami said that "the cooler conditions will be particularly noticeable during the overnight periods, with lows ranging from the mid 40s to low 50s inland, and from the upper 50s to low 60s along the coasts."
The cold may not be intense enough to trigger the infamous falling-iguana alerts in Florida, however.
Cold forecast to be short-lived
Forecasters from the Climate Prediction Center said the cold snap should be short-lived. A map from the center released Tuesday (below) shows above-average temperatures are forecast to spread across the entire nation by the middle to end of next week.
"These cold temperatures look to be short-lived, as (computer model guidance) shows temperature anomalies of 10-15 degrees above normal developing the week of Christmas," the weather service in Minneapolis said. In Duluth, where temperatures of 2 degrees are possible this weekend, the temperature could reach a mild 40 degrees on Christmas Day.
Warm West
While the East braces for the cold snap, the West will be warmer than average this week: "Temperatures will be well above average across portions of the southwestern U.S. and may reach record highs from Southern California into the Desert Southwest on Wednesday and Thursday," the weather service said.
Phoenix should see a high of 81 degrees on Wednesday, which would be a record.
In addition to the warmth, gusty Santa Ana winds in southern California could cause wildfires to rage out of control or spark new fires Wednesday, AccuWeather meteorologists warned.