AccuWeather's Paul Pastelok warns of Arctic air gripping the central and eastern United States for next week. Subfreezing temperatures could hit Texas along with a threat of snow and ice.
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00:00Long-range expert meteorologist Paul Pastelak. And Paul, you've been talking about this cold now,
00:05you know, originally there was a lot of thought that it wouldn't get this cold a few months ago,
00:10and then you started seeing some changes that made you decide, okay, this cold's coming.
00:17Yeah, the change started in the northern Pacific. We saw a lot of activity coming off the Asian
00:22continent. And with all that activity, we felt that there's going to be some problems trying
00:26to warm it up, trying to get that Pacific air mass to come all the way across the country and
00:31warm things up in the east. And now we're seeing the buckling effect of the jet stream really
00:36taking on a charge here over the next 10 days or so. Watch that cold air charge south, Paul,
00:42as we go forward. There it is behind that storm Tuesday into Wednesday. It's not done.
00:47Another surge then as we head toward the end of the weekend. Look at all of that purple. And
00:53I guess to me, Paul, I follow the lines, right? Follow the yellow brick road. And it looks like
00:59those lines are coming right out of the Arctic. They are. They are coming. What a dramatic change
01:04we're going to be looking at, you know, talking about 60s and 70s or highs in Texas. And then by
01:08late next week, next weekend, we're going to be talking about highs in the 40s and 50s,
01:12nighttime lows getting down into the freezing mark. Upper part of Texas could be in the 20s
01:16and teens. So some really good cold air coming straight out of the north. You've got a big high
01:22off the west coast that's going to stay there consistently for the next several days. Some
01:26blocking over eastern Canada and the funnel effect right down the road here into the plain states.
01:32You drew this map for us yesterday, Paul. This is an area where a 10-day stretch,
01:37there's going to be times where temperatures fall below zero.
01:40Yeah, all the way possibly down to Nashville has a chance of getting below zero out of this cold
01:47period that we're looking at, probably just staying north of Atlanta. But again, these
01:51temperatures are going to be on the cold side for several days to come. Waves of cold coming down
01:56straight out of the north and the coldest air from departure sake. You're looking at Iowa,
02:02Illinois, Missouri, down into the Tennessee Valley by the time we get to the middle of January.
02:07Then there's going to be a wailing and gnashing of teeth of many meteorologists, including me,
02:12as we head toward this week. Storm comes across Texas maybe Wednesday to Thursday,
02:16could be some snow and ice with that. And then it's the million dollar question,
02:20does the storm stay weak and get pushed out the sea or does it strengthen and come up the coast?
02:25Well, we were talking about this earlier, Bernie, because of the high structure off the west coast,
02:30so far west, there is some room for this to turn a little bit towards the north direction,
02:35which would bring the Carolinas, mid-Atlantic, even southern New England into the picture by
02:39late next week. We'll have to continue to watch that system as it cuts across the Gulf Coast.
02:44And there's even probably more chances because this pattern doesn't go away down the road as well.
02:50Acuwa, the league long-range expert, meteorologist Paul Pasluck. Again, Paul, thanks for joining us.