January 14, 2024 Lower 48 in Deep Freeze
Lake effect snowfall piling up & East Coast snowfall threat
January 2024 was the 46th-warmest January in the 132-year national record (1895–2026), at 31.9°F against a 1991–2020 normal of 32.3°F (-0.5°F).
January 2024 was the 7th-wettest January in the 132-year national record (1895–2026), at 3.3in against a 1991–2020 normal of 2.3in (+0.9in).
NOAA/NCEI Climate at a Glance, contiguous United States. This is the observed record for the month, not a score of anything said in this piece — the forecast ledger begins 2026-08-17 and cannot reach earlier posts.
It’s everything we have been advertising for the past 7-10 days. The conventional and A.I. powered models all showed a strong Arctic blast with a lobe of the lower-stratospheric / upper-tropospheric polar vortex slowly but surely rotating through the Lower 48. The extreme cold is outperforming forecast guidance from several days ago most likely because of snow cover and underestimating the strength of the cold airmass up in Alberta. I’m particularly impressed with the wind chills into the minus 30s and minus 40s into Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois including Chicago. There is a huge population under this frigid cold dome.
Temperatures at 6 pm ET were colder than -10°F in Iowa and -6°F in Chicago with subzero temperatures bending around Lake Michigan into southern Michigan.
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- 182 · laid 2024-01-15T00:15:06.531000Z
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