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'Minimize talking' outside: Polar vortex bears down on North as Deep South braces for snow
A major snowstorm that lashed parts of the Midwest on Monday will give way to record-smashing cold this week as a powerful polar vortex drives a deep freeze across the eastern half of the nation, forecasters said.
A snowstorm will wreak havoc across the Deep South on Tuesday.
The bitter cold will bring below-zero temperatures to a quarter of the continental USA. The National Weather Service in Des Moines, Iowa, warned that "this is the coldest air many of us will have ever experienced." The service said that if people go outside, they should "avoid taking deep breaths, and minimize talking."
Schools could be closed in Iowa as buses may struggle to start, the weather service said.
Wednesday could be the coldest day ever recorded in Chicago – a forecast high of 14 below zero, the weather service said. There's a chance the Windy City will break its all-time coldest temperature record of 27 degrees below zero. Chicago's famous Brookfield Zoo will be closed Wednesday and Thursday for only the fourth time in its 85-year history.
"Some locations in the Midwest will be below zero continuously for 48-72 hours," according to AccuWeather meteorologist Mike Doll.
Chicago Faces Colder-Than-Arctic Blast Nearing All-Time Record
It could be warmer above the Arctic Circle than in Chicago by Wednesday, with temperatures forecast to fall in the Windy City to 20-to-25 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus-29 to minus-32 Celsius).
New York and Washington will be warmer, with a bit of snow.
Chicago is expected to approach an all-time record low of minus 27, set in 1985, according to Brian Hurley, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Wind chill, meanwhile, could feel closer to minus-40 to minus-45.
"That is pretty amazing," Hurley said by telephone on Monday. But there's hope ahead for the weekend, when the cold is forecast to retreat across the U.S., with temperatures returning to seasonal levels or warmer, Hurley added.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:42PM (26 children)
It's only exceptional because some talking heads are telling us that it's exceptional. The young and the naive have to believe the talking heads, because they have no experience to draw on.
I mentioned in another discussion that I've personally experience -20 degree (or lower) temperatures in every state that borders Canada - and in several states further south. I think that I could say the same about every state north of the Mason Dixon line, and a few states south of that.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:04PM (1 child)
Also, they now give weather events such cool names. "Polar vortex", like wow, that's so much more dramatic than "it's damn cold".
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:14PM
Or you're just a nutter https://www.weather.gov/safety/cold-polar-vortex [weather.gov]
Sciencey stuff used to be avoided, but the demographics are changing and science literacy is up so now we get to use the cool names =)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:05PM (14 children)
Oh Runaway, you're so cute.
I guess we can all find out tomorrow if the records get broken, think you can come up with a more amusing narrative by then?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:32PM (13 children)
Let's try putting this another way: If the record is broken, then it is only the lowest temp ever recorded since white men started setting up instruments to record the temperatures. In all thousands of years that the red man occupied this continent, do you think maybe they saw colder temps, but just didn't have a way to record them? Considering that we've left an ice age behind us, relatively recently, I'd be willing to bet both of your testicles that they have.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:04PM (12 children)
Halfway through your dumbassery I said "duh we've been in a warming period for a little while now" and I was completely unsurprised to see you use that fact as some sort of win. You're getting close to the bottom, a few more beerfests and those last few brain cells will be permanently buzzed.
Member the hockey stick graph where morons like yourself said "they make the graph look like a big deal but if you zoom out the change is hardly noticeable"? Here it is again with some handy details to help you make sense of it https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com] Note how the rate of change increased dramatically with the Industrial Revolution.
You've been played for a chump.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:52PM (11 children)
I have noted that hockey stick finale previously. As much as I admire xkcd, his cartoon doesn't validate the hockey stick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:54PM
Drink you stupid horse!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:10PM (9 children)
Maybe you are unaware, but the guy who made that webcomic is a huge nerd.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:26PM (8 children)
Runaway is looking to "validate" pretty basic data, there is no hope for someone that starts the propaganda that early in the process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:46PM (7 children)
I'm an even bigger nerd than the webcomic guy. I use numbers as my raw data instead of pictures and they lead to different conclusions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:49PM (6 children)
Please do tell! I've always wanted to hear tales from a real data scientist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:06PM (5 children)
Why would I give it away for free?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:47PM (4 children)
Because you haven't earned enough to even move out of the basement, so why would I pay for something that even your own mom doesn't value?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @12:12AM (3 children)
Sounds like your philosophy is that only rich people should get paid for their work? Is this some kind of reverse communism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @01:42AM (2 children)
You tell me, you're the bigwig scientist here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @01:58AM (1 child)
I am not a scientist, I am Bezos. Now pay me for my ideas.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @11:57PM
Ok, but don't blame me that your ideas are valued at "one swift kick in the ass"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:14PM (8 children)
That's it, in a nutshell.
It plays out that way every year now, anymore. Hurricanes hit the Caribbean in the summer, so it's OMG IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD because that never, ever happens (except multiple times every year during hurricane season). Forest fires hit the West during the summer, so it's OMG IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIEEEEEE because that never, ever happens (except every single blessed summer in living memory all over the West). Now it's winter so it's OMG IT ACTUALLY GETS COLD AND SNOWS IN THE WINTER WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE OMG CLIMATE CHANGE ARRRRGGGHH because it never, ever gets cold and snows in the winter (except every winter within living memory).
We the people need a more effective way to mock the hell out of the media for it. Their stupid antics to try to cram reality into their one-dimensional Narrative beggar belief. Can we drop them all on a desert island with a crate of cans of tuna and nothing but spoons to open them with, so the rest of us can point and laugh? I mean, at least then they'd add some value to the world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:57PM (2 children)
Says the guy who worked in politics. I think y'all passed your expiration date, too bad the Puritans didn't appropriate the "walk into the wilderness when no longer useful" part of the native culture.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 30 2019, @03:17AM (1 child)
Is that "y'all" in the singular, or plural sense? I can't tell if you're intending an ad hominem jab, a racist insult, or some flavor of ageism. If the latter two, you best report to remedial sensitivity training before your Chief Diversity Officer gets wind of your bigotry.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @05:33AM
Your mistakes are your own old man! I say the true path is follow through!!
Ok, since you're more articulate than most of the trolls here I'll bother.
y'all is plural and was referring to old people who stop using their brains, but to be fair there are plenty of young people making little use of theirs. The difference is the young people stand a chance of learning while the old people tend to get cranky and stubborn insisting that surviving a few more decades makes them the wisest sages. So ageism it is, but obliquely. Sorry for profiling you, you should be considered as a unique individual.
My Chief Diversity Officer just laughed upon reading your quip. I report all possible transgressions for review, I have absolute faith in the system and anything that appears otherwise is part of the Greater Plan.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:10PM (4 children)
I re-read your comment and wondered just how dire the OMG FREAKOUT stuff was compared to your characterization.
I saw one sentence of doom "A snowstorm will wreak havoc across the Deep South on Tuesday."
and then of course the evil lizard agenda Democrat governor said
"In a statement, Whitmer said, “Keeping Michiganders safe during this stretch of dangerously cold temperatures is our priority. Such widespread, extreme conditions have not occurred in Michigan for many years and it is imperative that we are proactive with record-low temperatures being predicted by the National Weather Service."
I see what you mean phoenix, such insanity can not be tolerated! We must return our great nation to common sense, decency, one nation, under god, with, uh, what now?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 30 2019, @03:11AM (3 children)
Look, you do realize that Michigan consists of two peninsulas sandwiched between Great Lakes, right? That means it gets fucking cold and snows, a lot, there every winter. People who live there don't huddle in that weather. Rather, they suit up and go out and ice fish and ride snowmobiles and snowshoe and ski and sled. So telling them to watch out for cold weather during, gasp, the middle of winter, is utterly gratuitous. It's like the governor of Arizona making a big hullabaloo about people wearing sunscreen and drinking water during summer because, gosh, it's hot in the desert in the summer.
Maybe you don't perceive the harm in overhyping trivialities, constantly, but it corrodes public attentiveness in the same way that old children's tale warned us not to cry wolf. When somebody unceasingly rings the alarm bell then the alarm bell comes to be ignored, and that is dangerous.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @03:48AM (2 children)
The fact you think that quote is chicken littling shows you are a bit out of whack. The only thing more ridiculous than headlines of doom are the people searching for more outrage than even the clickbaiters are pushing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @04:08PM (1 child)
The quote /is/ bullshit though. It's been maybe 5 years since we had this much snow and cold, but that's only because winters have been unreasonably mild for the past decade. Schools are closed left and right over 5 inches of snow. It's pure insanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @04:57PM
So people shouldn't prepare for extreme cold because you have personally experienced it before? You want teenagers driving like normal cause all the old people say there is nothing to worry about?