Wild Weather in Central U.S. as Deep Freeze to Follow Heat Wave

Unusually warm weather in the central and southern United States on Monday and Tuesday will be followed by a deep freeze as extreme winter weather moves from coast to coast.

Monday’s temperatures in the Midwestern states of Iowa and Nebraska were roughly 40 degrees Fahrenheit above average — in the mid-70s — while southern cities like Dallas baked in temperatures that reached the mid-90s.

“Most of the eastern two-thirds of the country has had a relatively snow-less winter, so the ground is bare and dry,” said Joe Wegman, a National Weather Service meteorologist, as Reuters reported. “So we’re getting much warmer temperatures just due to solar radiation.”

Warm winds from the Gulf of Mexico were also contributing to the heat wave, which Wegman said is racing to the east and will be out to sea in the Atlantic by Thursday.

“We’re blowing away the records in northern Illinois into south central and southwestern Wisconsin,” said meteorologist Mark Gehring in Sullivan, Wisconsin, as reported by USA Today.

Warmer temperatures and dry, gusty winds mean an increased fire risk in the Great Plains, as critical fire conditions led to red flag warnings being issued, along with fire watches in portions of Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, as well as Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Missouri, Illinois and Iowa.

In the upper Midwest, “scattered strong to severe thunderstorms, associated with large hail, damaging gusts, and a few tornadoes will be possible from late Tuesday afternoon into the evening and overnight,” the Storm Prediction Center reported.

Wegman said the unseasonably warm weather is being followed by a strong cold front on Tuesday, reported Reuters.

For example, Monday’s high in Grand Forks, North Dakota, was 48 degrees Fahrenheit, while Tuesday is forecast to be nine degrees with a biting wind chill of minus-20 degrees Fahrenheit.

“A strong winter storm and cold front will continue to progress through the West, reaching the Central Rockies on Tuesday,” the National Weather Service said. “[T]he storm will create near-blizzard conditions, resulting in dangerous travel. Snowfall rates of 1-2 inches per hour will move into the Great Basin and Central Rockies… These snow rates combined with winds gusting 50-65 mph will produce near-blizzard conditions.”

Wednesday is also expected to bring, “Light to moderate snow over the Great Lakes, Central Appalachians, and Northeast,” according to the National Weather Service.

Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Great Lakes research laboratory shows the lakes’ ice cover is at historic lows, with zero coverage on Lake Erie and just 10 percent on Lake Huron, Reuters reported.

Ice is essential for the region’s ecosystem, protecting fish eggs and helping to keep large winter waves from eroding the shoreline.

There is still some possibility of recovery, as peak ice season on the lakes isn’t until early March.

Great Lakes ice coverage has gone down five percent each decade due to global heating, according to a recent report from the NOAA research laboratory — a 25 percent reduction in the 50 years between 1973 and 2023.

Weather forecasters and scientists have said extreme weather is occurring more often due to human-caused climate change, with the El Niño weather pattern a contributing factor in the erratic weather.