Winter Won't Give Up: Bitterly Cold Finish to February

The start of March is just a few days away, so visions of shedding your heavy coat and placing it into storage might be entering your mind.

Unfortunately, the weather pattern for the final days of February and the start of March won't cooperate with that thought process, particularly if you live along the northern tier of the United States.

Winter's Frigid Temperatures Hang On

It's a weather pattern that residents of the central and eastern states are very familiar with this winter, and also probably frustrated with. 

Once again the polar jet stream is plunging southward, tapping bitter cold air directly from the Arctic Ocean. This latest frigid plunge will engulf the nation's northern tier into the weekend. For the middle of the week, much of the South will join in on the shivering. 

Let's step through the details of the forecast.

• Where: After oozing across the Midwest and Northeast the past few days, below-average temperatures will make a more dramatic southward plunge Tuesday through Thursday. Temperatures will be 10 to 30 degrees colder than late-February averages across most of the Midwest and parts of the Northeast into this weekend. At times, portions of the Upper Midwest and northern Plains could be up to 35 or 40 degrees below average. Some daily record low temperatures will be threatened in the Midwest each morning from Wednesday through Friday.
• Midwest Region Details: High temperatures in the single digits and teens will dominate from eastern Montana through the Upper Midwest to parts of the Great Lakes; subzero highs will return to parts of the Upper Midwest at times, especially Thursday. Lows will be in the single digits and teens below zero from the northern Plains to the Upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes. Some 20s below zero are possible near the Canadian border (North Dakota, northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin). Wind chills at times this week will be in the teens, 20s and 30s below zero from the northern Plains to the Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes.
• Northeast Region Details: Highs will be in the 20s and 30s along the I-95 corridor from Boston to Philadelphia much of this week, though the Baltimore-Washington area will get occasional milder reprieves. Lows may fall into the teens by late week. Elsewhere, highs in the teens and 20s will take over locations from northern New England to western New York and western Pennsylvania.
• South Region Details: Highs in the 40s and 50s will take over a large part of the South by Wednesday. Some 30s are possible in the Mid-South and southern Appalachians. Widespread lows in the 20s and 30s building into the Mid-South and Southern Plains Wednesday morning, then spreading into the Deep South and Carolinas by Thursday morning, lingering into Friday morning. Below-freezing low temperatures may reach the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama Thursday morning. Temperatures 10 to 15 degrees below average will briefly dip as far south as central Florida Thursday, bringing highs in the low to mid 60s.

As we enter the first week of March, the latest long-range outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center shows that below-average temperatures may continue across much of the country east of the Rockies.

find this story at: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/bitter-cold-finish-february-20140221