cnn
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The most powerful arctic blast of the winter is about to unleash dangerously low temperatures that will be the coldest to hit the United States in a year.
The cold will arrive this weekend and it looks like it will be longer-lasting and more expansive than the last blast of arctic air in January that, among other dangers, created one of the coldest NFL games in history and the coldest Iowa caucuses. cold ones that are known.
Before the frigid air arrives, a brief rise in temperatures will affect much of the central US on Thursday and Friday. It will be the first time since the beginning of the year that cities such as Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Missouri, will record above-average temperatures. However, this glimpse of heat will only intensify the extreme cold that will follow.
Brutally cold air from Siberia, near the Arctic Circle, will sink south over Canada later this week and rush into the northern US in the early hours of Saturday morning. It will then spread across much of the western and central US on Saturday and reach parts of the south and east on Sunday. Temperatures could be nearly 60 degrees below normal on Monday for millions of people in the lower 48 states in what is already the coldest part of the year.
The most extreme cold will settle over the Dakotas late this weekend and early next week.
Bismarck, North Dakota, has not had a high temperature below freezing since last January, but that could happen on both Sunday and Monday. Low temperatures in the northern part of the state could bottom out at 31 to 34 degrees below zero Monday morning.
The flurries will arrive along with the cold and send wind chills to 40 degrees below zero or lower in North Dakota on Monday morning. According to the US National Weather Service, this wind chill can cause frostbite to exposed skin in 10 minutes or less.
Single-digit wind chills will cover most of the US on Monday morning and are possible as far west as Nevada, as far south as Texas and as far east as Maine.
Monday will likely be the coldest day of the season so far in Dallas, where the high temperature will only rise a few degrees above freezing. It will also be the coldest day of the year in Chicago, where the high temperature will be around -12°C.
Cold air will also hit the East Coast and Southeast on Monday. In northern New England, highs will be in the single digits, and in the mid-Atlantic and much of the Southeast, between -1 and 4°C.
Tuesday could be just as cold, if not colder for some, especially in the east and south.
The divisional round of the NFL playoffs will start just as the cold hits those same areas.
The temperature will be around -6°C for Saturday’s mid-afternoon kickoff between the Houston Texans and the Kansas Chiefs in Kansas City, Missouri, but the wind chill will be around -10°C then and throughout the game. game.
Frostbite and hypothermia are serious risks with such cold winds, especially for fans exposed to the outdoors for several hours. Last January, a game infamous for the cold was played in Kansas City, with a wind chill of less than 20 degrees below zero. Dozens of people showed signs of hypothermia and more than a dozen were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
Brutal cold is also expected for the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills on Sunday in Orchard Park, New York. Temperatures will be around -6°C in the early afternoon and will drop several degrees thereafter. The wind chill will be less than 10°C below zero throughout the match.
The coldest air of the season will slide into Washington on Monday for President-elect Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day. A maximum of 8 degrees below normal is expected with a maximum of -1.6 °C. It will be the coldest Inauguration Day since former President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, when the high temperature was -1.1°C.
