Winter weather forecast: Heavy snow and blizzard conditions in Midwest ahead of a 'dangerous' arctic blast that could set record lows across U.S.

More than 1,000 flights canceled as ground stop issued at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Dylan Stableford
·Senior Writer
Updated ·4 min read
1.8k
Snow is cleared from a walkway.
Snow is cleared from a walkway at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday. (Tannen Maury/UPI/Shutterstock)

A massive winter storm is bringing another round of heavy snow to the Midwest, triggering blizzard warnings in at least half a dozen states and forcing the cancellations of hundreds of flights ahead of an arctic blast that will send temperatures plunging to potentially record lows for much of the country.

More than 1,000 flights were canceled across the U.S. Friday, including more than 600 at Illinois airports, due to the snow. A ground stoppage was issued at Chicago’s O’Hare for all flights due to snow and ice. More than 2,000 power outages were reported, leaving nearly 100,000 customers in the Chicago area without power.

According to the National Weather Service, blizzard conditions are expected to continue across the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes through Saturday.

Behind the storm, dangerous frigid temperatures are likely across the Rockies and Plains through this weekend, the weather service said.

The system — combined with an arctic blast from the polar vortex — has the potential to create a "bomb cyclone" in the Midwest as well as more heavy rain, coastal flooding and severe weather for the Southeast and East Coast.

Return of the ‘polar vortex’

Several dozen cars on a snowy road.
Snow falls in Sioux City, Iowa, on Monday. (Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Press Wire)

The polar vortex is a gigantic, circular area of cold air high up in the atmosphere that typically spins over the North Pole. But occasionally it will dip toward the south, as it has now.

“The stratospheric polar vortex is now stretching down across North America,” Amy Butler, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote in a blog post.

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So how cold will it get? USA Today explains:

By Monday morning, 88% of the contiguous U.S. could see below-freezing temperatures. The bitter cold is expected to spill all the way down to the Gulf Coast, with some weather models showing the entire state of Texas below freezing Monday and Tuesday.

Wind chills are also expected to be brutal, with the weather service warning of "dangerously" low wind chill temperatures for much of the country.

Temperatures for the Iowa caucuses next Monday evening are forecast to be frigid — potentially close to zero degrees across nearly the entire state.

What is a ‘bomb cyclone’?

A person clears snow off a sidewalk with a snow blower.
A person clears snow off a sidewalk in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday. (Abbie Parr/AP)

It’s a winter hurricane, basically. According to NOAA, a bomb cyclone “occurs when a mid-latitude cyclone rapidly intensifies,” or quickly drops in atmospheric pressure. And the lower the pressure gets, the more powerful the storm.

The weather phenomenon is expected to dump as much as two feet of snow in some areas of the Midwest while triggering severe thunderstorms across parts of the South and Southeast — and more tornadoes are possible.

Will the mid-Atlantic finally see some snow?

Someone holding an umbrella walks up the driveway toward the White House.
A reporter walks up the driveway toward the White House on a rain-soaked morning in Washington, D.C., Tuesday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

According to forecasters, another storm system could bring heavy snow next week to parts of the East Coast that haven’t seen more than a dusting in years.

Both Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia have not recorded measurable snowfall of more than an inch in any given storm since January 2022.

Meanwhile, it's been a remarkably busy stretch for meteorologists across the country. As of Friday morning, all 50 states were under some sort of National Weather Service watch, warning or advisory.