Every kind of weather is about to hit the US, forecasters warn

In a wide-ranging March outlook, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center and other meteorologists warned that the United States is moving into a stretch where multiple hazards can stack—flooding rain, record warmth, heavy snow and Arctic cold all within days of each other. Meteorologist Marc Chenard said that even where locations are not themselves experiencing the most extreme conditions, the overall pattern will keep flipping between colder and warmer spells.

Chenard delivered that warning as part of a forecast described by the National Weather Service and assessed by meteorologist Marc Chenard and former NOAA chief scientist Ryan Maue. Maue said he expects extreme weather in all 50 states. Chenard characterized the shift as a national pattern rather than a collection of isolated events, describing it as generally changing from cold to warm and back again.

For the Southwest, the forecast calls for a heat dome to form early next week and remain parked over the region, with day after day of triple-digit temperatures. The outlook cited Maue and Chenard as saying the early-season heat could reach highs near 100 degrees Fahrenheit before late March, with Phoenix in particular facing a rapid run-up after temperatures that would normally arrive later in the year. The weather service cautioned that because people are not acclimated to that level of heat this early, it would be more impactful than usual.

The AP report also noted that the heat has already begun to show up in places farther west. In Los Angeles, Shane Dixon described running in the area but cutting his exercise short on a Thursday as temperatures made the conditions feel difficult to tolerate. He said, “The back of my neck was melting,” adding that he would rather face the heat than wait for the cold and snow forecast elsewhere.

North of that warmth, the same forecast scenario calls for a polar vortex to plunge Arctic air into the Midwest and East, even reaching bordering areas of the Southeast. Maue said Minneapolis will hover around zero with a low near -18 C and that Chicago could see single-digit temperatures. He also described the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic as facing colder conditions in the teens and 20s, with even Atlanta potentially dropping into the 20s.

The changes also include two rounds of winter weather affecting the northern tier and Great Lakes. Maue said one storm system is expected Friday, followed by another starting Sunday into Monday, with totals in places that could reach 3 to 4 feet of snow. He characterized the second system as an especially intense setup, saying its barometric pressure is forecast to drop quickly and sharply—an intensification pattern that would make it qualify as a “bomb cyclone,” which the report described as unusual to develop over land.

The AP report added that just south of where the heavy snow is expected in Michigan, there is also potential for a significant ice storm, according to meteorologist Jeff Masters with Yale Climate Connections. Separately, Masters said an area from Kansas through Oklahoma and into Texas and toward the Gulf of Mexico is forecast to get high winds with gusts approaching or exceeding 60 mph, a combination that can raise wildfire concerns where rain has been limited.

In Nebraska, Gov. Jim Pillen declared an emergency and mobilized the National Guard to help fight roughly two dozen wildfires that have burned more than 550 square miles of rangeland and grassland, according to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency as cited by the AP. The report said strong winds and low humidity have made those fires difficult to contain, and that no injuries had been reported at the time of the update.

Beyond the continental United States, the outlook also includes Alaska and Hawaii. Maue said Hawaii is getting an atmospheric river bringing persistent heavy rain and that flooding would be a major issue, with Oahu under a flash flood warning. For Alaska, he said conditions will be about 30 degrees colder than usual, even though it is normally already cold for the season.

Overall, the forecast framing tied the upcoming swings to a jet stream described as behaving in an unusually extreme way—plunging sharply one way and then rising quickly another. Maue and Chenard said storm fronts coming from the Pacific are interacting with that pattern by riding into the heat dome over the Southwest and then drawing down cold air from farther north. They also said numerous studies connect unusual jet stream and polar vortex activity with shrinking Arctic sea ice and human-caused climate change, while Maue pointed to a nearby seasonal milestone as a sign of eventual recovery: “The first day of spring is 20th (of March), and then after that we get recovery.”