Wintry week ahead with multiple rounds of cold and snow into the weekend
- - Wintry week ahead with multiple rounds of cold and snow into the weekend
Kathryn ProcivJanuary 20, 2026 at 12:20 AM
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The week ahead is shaping up to be an impactful one of winter weather, with two rounds of arctic cold and the potential for a disruptive winter storm that could last into the weekend.
On Monday morning, 77 million people woke up under cold alerts across two regions, the first from the Northern Plains to Northeast and the second across the state of Florida.
Wind chills were as cold as -20 to -30 below zero for northern areas, and as cold as 20 to 30 degrees for Floridians.
While the cold alerts were expected to expire by mid-morning for Florida, Monday will remain chilly with even afternoon highs remaining 10-25 degrees below average.
Monday will be the coldest day for the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions, and Tuesday will be the coldest day of the week for the Northeast. New York City, for example, will endure wind chills in the single digits and teens for most of the day on Tuesday.
The cold air will fuel a few rounds of snow through midweek from the Upper Midwest to the Great Lakes and interior Northeast.
Monday's snow is focused across the Great Lakes, where heavy lake effect will blanket the typical snowbelt areas downwind of the lakes. Here, a generalized 6 to 12 inches of new snow will fall, with the highest localized totals of 2 to 3 feet across the Tug Hill Plateau area of New York.
In addition to lake effect snow, the next clipper system will dive out of Canada on Tuesday and bring a round of snow to the Dakotas, Minnesota (including light amounts for Minneapolis) and Iowa.
On Wednesday, the same clipper will zip across the Great Lakes (bringing light snow for Chicago) in the first half of the day, then bring some snow to the interior Northeast and New England by the second half of the day.
While the cold and snow in the first half of this week will make for wintry scenes, the snow totals will not be blockbuster and the cold not record-setting.
The next round of cold and potential winter storm shaping up for later this week, however, could be both record-setting and disruptive.
A person rides a bicycle through blowing snow, Wednesday, in Evanston, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. (Kiichiro Sato / AP)
Beginning on Friday, the next blast of arctic air will affect the northern Plains and Upper Midwest first, and then other parts of the Plains, Midwest and eventually the Southeast and Northeast through the weekend.
Wind chills this upcoming weekend are forecast to be as cold as 30 below zero, with some localized areas experiencing wind chills that could be as cold as 40 to 50 below zero. For the Northeast and New England, wind chills are already forecast to be below zero by Sunday.
The cold temperatures this upcoming weekend will be the coldest air of the season so far, and very well may ultimately be the coldest air of the entire season.
How far this arctic air plunges south will determine the scope of a winter storm in the making. As of Monday morning, the signal was growing for a high-impact winter storm that could bring widespread snow and ice across the southern tier of the U.S. from Friday through Sunday.
This system will likely affect the Southern Plains, lower Mississippi Valley, and Southeast with wintry precipitation. There is also potential for this wintry precipitation to spread north into the Northeast over the weekend, but forecasters warned there is too high uncertainty in this potential for any more detail this far in advance.
Forecasters also cautioned that even as model guidance converges on the possible scenarios surrounding this winter storm, it is still impossible to predict exact details of precipitation amounts and where the rain, snow and ice line will set up.
However, Meteorologists were confident enough on Monday to start messaging the potential risks for people who may be impacted, including the National Weather Service in Dallas who warned of freezing temperatures and the potential for a messy wintry system later this week.
As the forecast comes into better focus, it is looking more likely that the second half of January will feature significant winter weather, affecting nearly everyone from the Rockies to the East Coast.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
