WEATHERAmerica Newsletter, Sunday, January 25, 2026; SHORT And MEDIUM RANGE RANGE OUTLOOKS

[Larry Cosgrove]

SHORT RANGE OUTLOOK

(Through The Next 72 Hours)

 

Sprawling Arctic Vortex Dominates Eastern 2/3 Of North America With Cold Air

METEOBLUE

PivotalWeather.Com (3)

ECMWF

College Of DuPage Weather Laboratory (3)

Satellite imagery and temperature plots continue to show the wide expanse of extreme cold across the eastern two-thirds of North America. Helping to draw down the Arctic regime from its earlier home in Siberia is a conjoined three-tier jet stream phase with a storm that moved from off of Baja California into the western Gulf Coast. This merger will create huge problems with frozen precipitation as well as with wind, severe weather, and of course bitter cold in the near term. Ridge building will return to the Pacific shoreline from Alaska to western Mexico, acting with another blocking signature in BaffIn Island and Greenland to force the coldest air of the season so far into the eastern two-thirds of the continent. Keep in mind that another impulse in the subtropical jet stream may organize west of Florida late in the new week, creating another opportunity for important snowfall in the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, New England and Maritime Provinces next weekend.

 

MEDIUM RANGE OUTLOOK

(Four To Ten Days From Now)

 

High-Amplitude Jet Stream Configuration Presents More Potential For Storms And Cold

METEOBLUE

WeatherBELL (4)

UQAM Meteocentre (4)

College Of DuPage Weather Laboratory (3)

It has been a few years since the nation as a whole had the current 500MB configuration with "for real" winter weather east of the Rocky Mountains. The storm this weekend is probably just a sample of how the remainder of January and February is going to be. There is enough evidence from the medium range model guidance that another southern branch storm may arise out of Mexico, do an eastward, then northward track scenario. Since temperatures may again be of Siberian or at the very least Beaufort Sea origin, the combinant storm would bring the bitter values as far south as Belize and Cuba.Western ridging again implies no storminess or lasting cold in the Desert and Intermountain Regions. On the opposite side of the coin, record chances for snowfall seem possible for Appalachia and the Great Lakes/Northeast.