Explosive 'Arctic Hurricane' set to slam US East Coast with life-threatening subzero cold

An 'Arctic hurricane' is expected to form off the US East Coast, threatening millions of Americans with extreme cold, heavy snow, and dangerous winter conditions.

Weather models indicate that the powerful system will develop off the coast of the Carolinas early Saturday before rapidly intensifying at an explosive rate, fast enough to meet the criteria of a bomb cyclone.

The impending Arctic blast is expected to be so extreme that temperatures are predicted to fall to near freezing throughout Florida on Sunday. Even Miami is expected to reach the 30s that morning.

Throughout the rest of the country, including portions of the South, Midwest, Northern Plains, and Northeast, temperatures are expected to fall near zero on Sunday morning, increasing the risk of hypothermia or frostbite for anyone outdoors.

Meteorologist Ryan Hall, known as 'The Internet's Weather Man,' warned that the bomb cyclone, a powerful winter storm that strengthens quickly as air pressure drops sharply, will develop in the Atlantic this week, spiraling just like a tropical cyclone.

'That's pretty much a hurricane,' Hall said on Tuesday. 'Whoever ends up on the western side of that in the cold area is going to get absolutely clobbered with snow.'

While Hall cautioned that it was too early to say if the storm would make landfall this weekend and deliver up to a foot of snow in some areas, the forecaster was certain that this week's dangerously cold temperatures are about to get worse.

'Another arctic blast is going to come around the backside of this low-pressure system, probably the most powerful one of the year so far, and it's going to plummet temperatures down 30 degrees below average,' the meteorologist warned.

As of Wednesday, the storm looks likely to form as a very strong low-pressure system, a spinning weather system that pulls in air and causes bad weather, off the North Carolina coast by Sunday.

However, Hall warned in his latest forecast on YouTube that the system appeared to be strengthening significantly, potentially dropping in pressure to around 965 millibars, which is unusually strong for this kind of winter storm.

Atmospheric pressure is measured in millibars, and lower numbers indicate a stronger storm. For comparison, normal sea-level pressure is about 1,013 millibars. 

A drop to around 965 millibars signals an exceptionally intense system, comparable in strength to a Category 1 hurricane. 

At that level, the pressure difference allows the storm to pull in air more aggressively, fueling stronger winds, heavier snow, and rapidly worsening conditions.

In winter storms, pressure that low is rare and often associated with major blizzards and bomb cyclones capable of causing widespread travel disruptions, power outages, and dangerous cold.

The main question is exactly where the heaviest snow will fall. Some models push the storm farther out to sea, which means it mostly affects the ocean and coastal areas but spares big cities from Washington DC to Boston from a major snowfall.

Early prediction models also show the storm could bring heavy snow to the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York from Saturday until possibly Monday.

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine could all be in the path of the snowstorm as well.

In those cases, places farther south, like parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and southeast Virginia, could get dumped on with several inches of snow, but possibly one to two feet in some spots.

Other tracks for the storm, however, suggest the bomb cyclone could form closer to the coast, bringing six to seven inches of snow to most of the East Coast, including New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. 

AccuWeather Director of Forecasting Operations Carl Erickson said in a statement: 'There is an increasing risk for a rapidly strengthening coastal storm this weekend. Communities along the East Coast still digging out and cleaning up from last weekend’s storm could be hit again with more snow.'

Hall noted that areas in the South, including parts of Tennessee and Mississippi that are still without power, will likely be severely impacted by the intense cold sweeping across the US later this week.

As of Tuesday, nearly 400,000 Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky were still without power following Winter Storm Fern this past weekend, according to PowerOutage.us.

Over 30 people have died following the massive snow and ice storm that swept across more than half the country. 

The treacherous weather began pounding parts of the South and the Plains on Friday, bringing ice, freezing rain, and snow, before the 2,000-mile storm spread eastward through Sunday night.

On Monday, wind chills approaching 30 degrees below zero were seen in multiple states throughout the US, including Ohio, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

Erickson noted that the unrelenting cold air over most of the country had been 'locked in' by the polar vortex descending over the US, making recovery efforts even harder as ice is unable to melt away. 

A polar vortex is like a spinning whirlpool of cold air high up in the atmosphere above the North Pole, normally held in place by strong winds that act as a barrier, keeping the extreme cold locked away from the US.

However, strong storms and high-pressure systems in the lower atmosphere have sent ripples of warmer air upward that knocked this vortex off balance, allowing the icy air from Canada and Greenland to dip farther south and blanket the US for weeks.

'The bitter cold is increasing the risk of hypothermia for people who are still without power and heat after the storm,' the AccuWeather director added.

'Ice often melts within a day or two after most southern ice storms. That’s simply not happening with this Arctic air locked in.'