Sick of the cold? Mother Nature has a change in store: A dramatic weather pattern change is coming next week that will flip the brutal cold on its head.
Few spots in the continental US have escaped the cold over the last week. Its wind chills plunged below minus 40 degrees in parts of the central US; it smashed hundreds of temperature records; it produced one of the coldest NFL games on record; and it made for the coldest Iowa caucuses ever held.
But by next week, frigid cold will be a distant memory across the mainland US as unseasonably mild conditions wipe out the chill. In some spots, it’ll feel more like March than January.
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A person makes his way to the Omni Mount Washington Resort toward the Nikki Haley event during a bad snow storm in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, January 16.
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People walk in New York's Central Park on January 16. Enough snow fell in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC, to end nearly two-year-long waits for an inch of snow there.
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Icicles hang from limestone along Interstate 65 in Nashville, Tennessee, on January 16.
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Snow falls on parked cars in Concord, New Hampshire, on January 16.
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A worker spreads a composite of ice melter and salt on sidewalks at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson on January 16.
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A snow-covered school bus sits in a parking lot in Wheeling, Illinois on January 16. School districts in more than half a dozen states announced closures amid frigid temperatures.
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People pass through a snowy Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC, on Monday, January 15.
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A family waits for their delayed flight at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas, on January 15. Thousands of flights have been canceled or delayed.
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Snow and ice surround the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines on January 15.
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Daniel Cole uses a plastic spoon to clear ice from his vehicle in Florence, Alabama, on January 15.
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Crews work to de-ice an airplane at Denver International Airport on January 15.
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Workers remove snow from Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, on Sunday, January 14. The NFL playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers
was pushed back a day due to dangerous blizzard conditions.
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A wrecked tractor-trailer is seen on the eastbound side of Interstate 80 near Williamsburg, Iowa, on January 14.
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A person clears a sidewalk in front of condominiums in Worthington, Ohio, on January 14.
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Cows graze through the snow in Atlantic, Iowa, on Saturday, January 13.
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Water from the Hudson River overflows at high tide as a woman jogs in Jersey City, New Jersey, on January 13.
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Snow and ice dust a worker who was removing snow from a sidewalk in Des Moines on January 13.
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Storm waves batter coastal homes in Winthrop, Massachusetts, on January 13.
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Travelers check their flight status at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, on Friday, January 12. More than 2,000 flights were canceled nationwide because of the winter storm.
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Workers shovel sidewalks in Ankeny, Iowa, on January 12. The vast majority of Iowa was under a blizzard warning.
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Vehicles slowly make their way along Northwestern Highway in Farmington Hills, Michigan, on January 12.
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Rebecca Zimmerman walks beside her bicycle on her way to work in Oak Park, Illinois, on January 12.
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Snow falls on January 12 as migrants in Chicago continue to be housed by the city in "warming" buses.
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A man looks over a heavily damaged oak-barrel factory in Bamberg, South Carolina, on January 10, a day after a tornado struck the city.
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An employee of the Storm Bros. Ice Cream begins to clean up January 10 after the storm left more than 2 feet of water inside many businesses in downtown Annapolis, Maryland.
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Kelly-Jo St. Aubin clears snow from the sidewalk outside her home in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, on January 9.
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Firefighters rescue a man after his car was stuck in a flooded area in Charlotte, North Carolina, on January 9.
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Because of the storm, nearly 2,000 migrants in Brooklyn, New York, were evacuated from tents at Floyd Bennett Field and taken to a local high school on January 9.
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A pedestrian navigates a snow-covered sidewalk in Iowa City, Iowa, on January 9.
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A house is damaged in Panama City Beach, Florida, on January 9. Responders rescued people from structures in Florida's Bay County, where multiple tornadoes hit the ground and caused significant damage and road closures, Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford said.
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Linda Cox looks at her two vehicles that were damaged by a fallen tree in Myrtle Grove, Florida.
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Snow covers the trees around the Holy Hill Basilica and National Shrine of Mary in Hubertus, Wisconsin, on January 9.
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People in Des Moines help push a vehicle back onto the road after it became stuck in the snow on January 9.
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Tornado wreckage is seen in Bay County, Florida, on January 9. Twelve tornadoes were reported across Florida, Alabama and Georgia that morning.
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Workers Brian Henderson and Josko Huljev fill sandbags for residents of Totowa, New Jersey, on January 9. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced a state of emergency to prepare for the potentially dangerous weather.
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Flooding is seen at an intersection in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on January 9.
Above-average temperatures are forecast for the entire Lower 48 starting Tuesday, according to a temperature outlook from the Climate Prediction Center.
A significant shift in the weather pattern in the upper levels of the atmosphere, where the jet stream flows, is driving this change.
During the ongoing cold pattern, the jet stream – a river of air that acts as a divider between warm and cold air – has been draped across the southern tier of the US. This positioning allows bursts of cold air to race from the Arctic, rush through Canada and barrel deep into the US.
But the jet stream will be positioned farther north across the US next week. This will do two things simultaneously: trap very cold air in Canada and allow warm air from the tropics to surge northward into the US.
The warming trend will begin as early as Sunday for parts of the West and north-central US. Milder conditions will expand in scope and strength across more of the country gradually early next week.
Chicago could finally rise above freezing on Monday. It could be the first time since Saturday afternoon that thermometers in the city eclipse the 32 degree mark.
But the most drastic temperature changes from week-to-week will happen by midweek in the central and eastern US.
Parts of the Plains and Midwest will flip from temperatures 30 to 40 degrees below average last Sunday to temperatures 10 to 20 degrees above average by next Wednesday.
Both Des Moines, Iowa, and Minneapolis will undergo 40- to 50-degree temperature swings from this week’s brutal cold to next week’s unseasonable warmth.
The high temperature in Des Moines on Sunday failed to climb past minus 7 degrees. By next Wednesday, a high in the upper 30s is expected – more akin to March. Minneapolis only hit 2 degrees on Sunday but will surge to a springlike high around 40 degrees next Wednesday.
It will feel more like late February farther east. Highs in the 40s will be common by midweek in Indianapolis, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York City.
