Arctic Blast Unleashes Historic Winter Storm, Plunging Eastern US into Deep Freeze

A brutal winter storm is set to slam the eastern two-thirds of the United States, bringing heavy snow, dangerous ice, and bone-chilling cold. The storm is expected to begin on Saturday and impact millions of people from Kansas City to Washington.

The National Weather Service has issued winter storm advisories stretching 1,500 miles from West Kansas to West Virginia. Areas between central Kansas and Indiana are expected to receive at least 8 inches of snow.

Dangerous ice is likely to form in southern Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and much of Kentucky and West Virginia. This type of ice is particularly lethal to power lines and can be difficult to remove.

Blizzard conditions are possible in Kansas and neighboring portions of the Central Plains, with wind gusts reaching 50 mph. The Northeast is expected to miss the brunt of the storm, but the Mid-Atlantic could receive up to 12 inches of snow or more in some areas.

Following the storm, temperatures are expected to plummet across the eastern two-thirds of the nation. The dreaded polar vortex will stretch down from the high Arctic, bringing dangerously cold air and wind chills. Temperatures could be 12 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit colder than normal.

The biggest drop below normal is likely to be centered over the Ohio Valley, but significant unusual cold will extend southward all the way to the Gulf Coast. There should even be a hard freeze in Florida, while areas near the Canadian border will be around zero.

This double dose of nasty weather may be triggered in part by a fast-warming Arctic. The polar vortex, ultra-cold air spinning like a top 15 to 30 miles high, usually stays penned up above the North Pole. But sometimes it escapes or stretches down to the United States, Europe, or Asia. And that's when large numbers of people get intense doses of cold.

The change in temperature and loss of Arctic sea ice make the jet stream wavier, allowing plunges of cold air to come south and extreme weather to stay put. This upcoming storm is a prime example of these kinds of cases.