The new year started out cold and rainy, marking for a rather dismal beginning to 2024. And Monday served some particularly dark ‘n’ dreary vibes thanks to a smattering of storms across the region.
The remainder of the week looks like it’ll stay pretty cool, but the real fun will kick off over the weekend.
A “strong Arctic airmass” is expected to hit us by late Friday, according to the National Weather Service’s office in Fort Worth. Temperatures could sink as low as the teens and 20s, plus we could suffer from even colder, single-digit wind chills.
“The weekend is going to be cold,” meteorologist Patricia Sanchez with NWS Fort Worth told the Observer. “Temperatures are going to be overnight in the 20s, and then daytime temperatures are in the upper 40s, low 50s Saturday.”
It'll turn MUCH colder Friday night & into the weekend!🥶🥶Temperatures are likely to drop into the teens/20s, but we aren't quite sure just *how* cold it will get. There's a 10% chance we see lows in the single digits to mid teens. Keep an eye on the forecast! #dfwwx #ctxwx pic.twitter.com/81YtNWpNLb
— NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) January 8, 2024
Meanwhile, Axios reported on Monday that “multiple ‘powerhouse’ storm systems and a polar vortex event” will strike parts of the U.S. over the next couple of weeks.
“Absolutely unreal extreme weather pattern with at least two intense blizzards w/ severe tstorm and flooding sides to them too, along with a polar vortex-connected Arctic outbreak,” Axios senior climate reporter Andrew Freedman wrote Monday morning on X.
Other news outlets in Texas have also recently mentioned the “polar vortex.” So what is it, exactly, and should North Texans be concerned?
What Is a Polar Vortex?
The polar vortex is essentially a broad swath of cold air spinning high above the North Pole. Sometimes, a jet stream can prompt part of the vortex to shift southward, resulting in certain areas of the U.S. experiencing a more-bitter-than-usual cold.NBC-DFW noted last month that a polar-vortex disruption preceded the historic freeze across the North Texas region in Feburary 2021.
Absolutely unreal extreme weather pattern with at least two intense blizzards w/ severe tstorm and flooding sides to them too, along with a polar vortex-connected Arctic outbreak. https://t.co/wdOtIg21ai
— Andrew Freedman (@afreedma) January 8, 2024
Space City Weather, a website for “hype-free” Houston forecasts, explains that the polar vortex is essentially home to the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest air. It usually stays put over the North Pole but can be thrown off by a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event and may then dump frosty air further south toward the mid-latitudes.
“[T]he bottom line here is that this year we are seeing a minor SSW event ongoing,” according to Space City Weather. “This will do some work on the polar vortex, and it should allow for a relatively wavier jet stream heading into later January. That does not mean a repeat of the February 2021 or December 2022 cold events in Texas, but it could mean some pushes of stronger cold than we’ve seen so far this winter.”
West Texas’ NewsWest9 further explains that the SSW phenomenon, AKA the “culprit of Winter Storm Uri,” was recently seen over the poles. It happens fairly infrequently and occurs when the stratosphere “warms by an absurdly high amount.”
One such instance happened around three years ago, when temperatures spiked by around 55 degrees above the Arctic Circle. Texas was subsequently struck by a cold-air spillover in February 2021.
This time around, the stratosphere over the Arctic Circle heated up by some 15 to 20 degrees, according to NewsWest9. That jump in temps isn’t nearly as large as what preceded Winter Storm Uri, but some parts of the state could potentially still see temperatures plummet to the low teens or colder in the coming days.
Snow in Dallas 2024
Many Native Texans long for winters with mountains of fluffy snow — a rarity in this region. We daydream of making snow angels and pray that wintry weather will prompt work and school cancellations.So, you might want to know: How’s the snow-cast looking in the coming days?
As of Monday afternoon, certain areas of North Texas seemed like they could potentially get some flurries next week.
Denton, for instance, had a 35% chance of snow on Monday, Jan. 15, with a high of 24 degrees and a low of 13, according to the iPhone’s weather app as of yesterday afternoon. The 10-day forecasts for Dallas and Fort Worth, meanwhile, both put the snow chances at 45% for next Monday, with similarly frigid temps.
At the same time, the Weather Channel’s website forecasted a 32% chance of snow on Sunday night in Dallas.
But while the weather gods are clearly saying that there’s a non-zero chance of snow, it’s worth noting that much can change between this week and next. So, don’t worry about dusting off your snowshoes and retrieving your sled from the attic just yet.
