Cold Blast Settles Over Midwest, Northeast

Comstock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — An arctic blast on Monday plunged Midwest temperatures into the single digits. Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago are among the cities feeling the deep freeze in the region.

For the first time in four years Minneapolis’ high temperature will be below zero for two days — Monday and Tuesday.
 
City officials in Chicago are warning the homeless and people without heat to get into shelters Monday night, when temperatures could fall below zero with wind chills at -15. For the first time in two years Chicago will fall below zero Monday night and Tuesday night.  

Still, Inauguration Day in your city may not have been as cold as it was in Fargo.  That city’s temperatures have felt like 30 below zero with the wind chill, and some parts of North Dakota have felt like 45 degrees below zero.  
 
A few sledders could be seen on hills in Fargo, but much of the city has been a ghost town outside because it’s so cold.

Jared Guyer, a forecaster with the storm prediction center in Norman, Okla., says an arctic blast is settling in over the nation’s midsection and below normal temperatures will likely stretch over the Great Lakes region into the Northeast.

“We have a very cold air mass that is in place, and will be in place across much of the northern tier of the country especially the North Central, Northeast U.S. stretching from parts of the northern plains through the Great Lakes region into the Northeast,” Guyer says.

Guyer says temperatures are running at least 15 to 25 degrees below average in those locations and temperatures will slowly moderate as we go through the end of the week.

Meanwhile, the cold air is also expected to bring Lake Effect snow from Michigan to Ohio and New York where some areas could get up to 20 inches. Snow accumulation is possible from just east of Cleveland to Erie, Pa., and the cities of Oswego and Watertown in New York.
 
A possible Nor’easter was expected to develop Monday evening in the Northeast and southern New England, where up to eight inches of snow could pile up for Cape Cod and eastern Massachusetts.  However, most of New England will likely get four to six inches of snow.

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