- Another blast of arctic air will cool the South and East through Saturday.
- After that, the extreme cold will stop in most parts of the country.
- The January thaw can continue until the end of the month.
- Locations recently buried by heavy snow could see rain next week.
The January thaw will arrive next week, bringing relief to areas hit hard by the latest display of winter storms and outbreaks of cold air.
Winter fatigue: In less than two weeks, five separate winter storms have struck parts of the country, from Winter Storm Ember in the Northeast on the first weekend of January to the current Winter Storm Nile, which spread from the West to the Midwest and East this week. This is equivalent to the full value of January's winter storms, on average.
Then a wave of bitterly cold air blew across the eastern two-thirds of the country. Dillon, Montana, hit an all-time record low (41 degrees below zero), the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins played the coldest game in franchise history (41 degrees below zero), and the lowest temperature in the lower 48 states on Wednesday was not in Montana, but in Kentucky.
Another cold blast: The nation can take a break from this. But that won't happen right away.
Another blast of cold air is barreling across the Plains and Mississippi Valley and will then extend into the Southeast this weekend.
(Current map trackers: Temperatures | Wind chill)
In most areas, this latest cold blast won't be quite as cold as we saw earlier this week. But it will still be uncomfortable.
For example, Saturday morning lows could dip into the 20s below zero in parts of the Missouri Valley, including Sioux Falls, and into the teens below zero in Omaha and Kansas City. It could flirt with daily record lows. Highs on Saturday may struggle to get out of the 20s in parts of the Southeast, which could set cold daily records.
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Then melt: There is a light at the end of this cold tunnel. Starting early next week, mild air will begin to flow north into the frigid Plains, Midwest and then south.
By Monday and Tuesday, highs will approach the freezing mark as far north as the upper Midwest. In the South, highs in the 50s and 60s will creep into the previously trembling South. By midweek, much of the South will be in the 60s and 70s.
(Forecast details: The highest and lowest levels in the United States in 10 days)
How long will it last: The January thaw may have staying power through the rest of the month. Some of our long-term guidance suggests that at least somewhat cool air may return to parts of the East around early February.
Flies in the ointment: This melting will not be accompanied by abundant sunlight. It is January, after all.
Warmer, wetter air flowing over a large snowpack will create areas of fog and low clouds in the Midwest, South and East next week.
It won't be dry either. Rainfall will return first to the southern Plains on Sunday, then to the Midwest and Northeast on Monday and Tuesday.
Since the air will be milder, this means that more of it may end up falling as rain, rather than snow, in most areas.
This combination of warm air and rain should melt what's left of the southern snowpack, and could also affect snow cover in the Midwest and Northeast. This could lead to some flooding, especially in areas where deep snow blocks storm drains on city streets. It could also lead to ice jams in some rivers and streams.
Why the change? This melting is mainly due to a reversal of the pattern that caused the trapping of cold air and winter storms.
The high pressure dam high near Greenland and the Canadian Arctic will disappear, leaving low pressure in its place.
This means that the mechanism for expelling cold air from Canada to the United States will not exist.
Instead, milder air from the Pacific will dominate, warmer air will flow north from the southern United States, and cold air will be trapped in Canada for a while.
It's a pattern that contributed to America's record warmest December in 129 years and the lowest Christmas snow cover in 20 years.
More at Weather.COM
– How to prevent frozen pipes in your home
– Tips for staying warm when the power goes out
– How to protect yourself from hypothermia
– Historic cold waves in US history
Jonathan Erdmann is a senior meteorologist for Weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then completed a master's degree working with dual polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and strange weather are his favorite subjects. Contact him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Facebook And the sky is blue.
The Weather Company's primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment, and the importance of science in our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
