Winter isn't over yet

[dan_s]

Though the calendar now says spring, atmospheric gremlins are conspiring to make winter linger a bit longer.

Thanks to a Rex Block over Alaska, the jet stream will take another deep dive from the North Pole to the eastern United States this weekend. That pattern will be locked in place throughout much of next week, plunging most of the eastern part of the country back into the deep freeze. Temperatures from Sunday to Thursday will be 10 to 25 degrees colder than long-term averages across most of the East, more fitting of mid-January than late March.

But the crown jewel of the wintery encore will be a major late-season nor’easter. Born of a combination of bitterly cold air and a core of rapidly intensifying low pressure, a big storm is increasingly likely to buzz the East Coast early next week.

National Weather Service: "The East Coast cyclone has the potential to produce late-season heavy snowfall over a wide swath of real estate from Virginia to New England; that is a generality at this point. Much remains in terms of refining the forecast state by state. Another high-impact factor will be the powerful winds generated by this sprawling, intense circulation, along with high seas, beach battery, coastal flooding, and so forth. Again, at this point, such sensible weather effects are simply attendant to the potential of such a storm."