February 12, 2025 Wednesday Winter Weather

Extreme cold from Polar Vortex events next week

Feb 12, 2025

∙ Paid

Good Wednesday Evening!

Noticing the days getting longer with daylight after 6 pm ET, which is one sign that Spring is around the corner — a very long corner. The Polar Vortex has loaded up across Ontario, Canada — and is ready to dump a load of cold continental polar air onto the Midwest and Great Lakes. Unfortunately, signs that the Arctic blast might be even more severe than anticipated as “worst case” just a few days ago.

GFS Dynamic Tropopause

Next 5 days: the little white fuzzball (very cold vortex) on the tropopause swirls around Hudson Bay and then dips into the Great Lakes, elongates, and then gets ready to swing through like a pendulum after Day 5.

For 15-days from EPS 00z (ECMWF had a huge network outage this morning) we can see an astounding cold pool dipping into the central U.S. before moderating and pushing east. The coldest air of the winter looks likely in the upper Midwest into the Great Lakes.

Back to short-term weather … HRRR Next 48-Hours

A major atmospheric river arrives into California on Thursday.

Winter storm system tracking out of the Central Plains into the Great Lakes: brief bout of snowfall swings through Chicago and Detroit. Heavy rain continues across the Southeast with potential for severe thunderstorms.

Weather on Wednesday Evening

Current frontal positions but for weather until Thursday morning.

Weather on Thursday

Amazing atmospheric river to crash into California.

NWS Precipitation Totals next 66-hours

Huge precipitation in the Sierra > 10” = more than 10-feet of snowfall.

NWS Snowfall Next 66-hours

Two storms in the Great Lakes | First 24-hours

Then, add up another storm system for the 66-hour Totals: 10-12” across Michigan, which does not need any more snow.

Most Recent 6-Days ECMWF Model Update (12z)

Thickness field shows the “Polar Vortex” as the gray (lowest thickness) over southern Canada (Ontario) dipping into the Great Lakes and elongating. Sometimes looking at the actual fields is much more informative than height anomalies!