Arctic blast to put Midwest in deep freeze, give Bay area coldest air of season

Ice floats on the surface of Lake Michigan in Chicago. The coldest weather in the Midwest is yet to come, though. Highs early next week likely won't reach zero, and wind chills could hit 45 below. 

It has been decades since parts of the Midwest experienced a deep freeze like the one expected to arrive Sunday, with potential record-low temperatures heightening fears of frostbite and hypothermia even in a region where residents are accustomed to bundling up.

The Northeast also is bracing for another round of frigid weather, and this time, even west-central Florida will be impacted.

It's due to what one meteorologist called a "polar vortex," which is caused by a counterclockwise-rotating pool of cold, dense air. The frigid air, piled up at the North Pole, will be pushed down to the United States, funneling it as far south as the Gulf Coast.

In the Bay News 9 viewing area, the cold air will arrive with a front Monday into Tuesday.

"By Tuesday morning we are going to be a whole lot cooler," Bay News 9 meteorologist Josh Linker said. "Wind chill factors on Tuesday morning, believe it or not, may be down in the teens."

Ambient temperatures will drop into the mid 30s around Tampa Bay and 20s in the northern counties Tuesday morning, Linker said. Tuesday's high isn't expected to reach even 50 degrees.

"It will be the coldest air we've seen so far this season," Linker said. "There will be many areas that get below freezing, and some spots could even have a hard freeze on Tuesday morning."

Bay area residents will have plenty of time to prepare mentally for the cold. Temperatures today will climb into the low 70s, although the skies will be cloudy, and to the mid to upper 70s tomorrow.

Most of the eastern half of the country will have it much worse than Florida.

Ryan Maue of Tallahassee, a meteorologist for Weather Bell, said temperature records will likely be broken during the short yet forceful deep freeze that will begin in many places on Sunday and extend into early next week. That's thanks to a perfect combination of the jet stream, cold surface temperatures and the polar vortex.

"All the ingredients are there for a near-record or historic cold outbreak," he said "If you're under 40 (years old), you've not seen this stuff before."

The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, N.D., minus 31 in International Falls, Minn., and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago. At those temperatures, exposed skin can get frostbitten in minutes and hypothermia can quickly set in because wind chills could hit 50, 60 or even 70 below zero.

Sunday's NFL playoff game in Green Bay could be among one of the coldest NFL games ever played. Temperatures at Lambeau Field are expected to be a frigid minus 2 degrees when the Packers and San Francisco 49ers kick off, and by the fourth quarter, it'll be a bone-chilling minus 7, with wind chills approaching minus 30, according to the National Weather Service.

Minnesota called off school for Monday statewide, the first such closing in 17 years, because of projected highs in the minus teens and lows as cold as 30 below. North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple urged superintendents to keep children's safety in making the decision after the state forecast called for "life threatening wind chills" through Tuesday morning.

And though this cold spell will last just a few days as warmer air comes behind, it likely will freeze over the Great Lakes and other bodies of water, meaning frigid temperatures will likely last the rest of winter, Maue said.

"It raises the chances for future cold," he said, adding it could include next month's Super Bowl in New Jersey.

The cold blast will sweep through parts of New England, where residents will have just dug out from a snowstorm and the frigid temperatures that followed.

Even places accustomed to normally mild to warmer winters will see a plunge in temperatures early next week, including Atlanta where the high is expected to hover in the mid-20s on Tuesday.

In recent days,  at least 16 deaths were blamed on the storm as it swept across the nation's eastern half, including three people who officials said died at least partly because of the extreme cold.

The snowfall had all but stopped by Friday morning in the hard-hit Philadelphia-to-Boston corridor and though the temperatures reached only the teens or single digits, the cold kept the snow powdery and light.

The heaviest snow fell north of Boston in Boxford, which received nearly 2 feet. Nearly 18 inches fell in Boston and in western New York near Rochester. Lakewood, N.J., got 10 inches, and New York's Central Park 6. Philadelphia got more than 6 inches.

Temperatures reached 8 below zero in Burlington, Vt., with a wind chill of 29 below, and 2 degrees in Boston. Wind chills there and in Providence, R.I., made it feel like minus-20 Friday morning, and the forecast called for more of the same into Saturday
.