Dangerous Cold Wave Expands, Intensifies For New Year's

This crazy ice covered dude has been surfing on Lake Superior
amid persistent subzero cold. 

As of this morning, about a third of the continental United States, including all of Vermont, was under wind chill warnings or wind chill advisories as the deep cold wave expands and intensifies, just in time for New Year's Eve celebrations.

During tomorrow night's famous New Years Eve ball drop in Times Square the temperature will likely be in the upper single numbers with wind chills as low as 10 below. Quite dangerous if you're out there too long and not for me, thanks.

I'm a cold weather wimp. First Night organizers will hate me, but I'm staying in. Enjoy First Night, definitely, but here in Vermont, do so while dressed for minus 20 wind chills or worse. I have a feeling the indoor events during the celebration in Burlington,  Vermont will be more popular than those outdoors.

I'm feeling a bit bad for the Vermont ski resorts: They finally got a year in which the Christmas week snow and snow conditions are terrific. But it's so cold that I'm sure it's discouraging some people from venturing out. There even have been some occasional wind holds on the lifts this week over wind chill concerns. That mght happen this weekend, too.

As the cold wave expands into the states in the Deep South, there's another concern: Freezing pipes. That's a problem here, of course. But down there, homes aren't very well insulated. It'll be easy for pipes to freeze, burst and flood homes. There will be a wave of insurance claims, for sure.

Cold waves like this always come in surges. There's at least two more Arctic surges here in Vermont to go through before there's any hope of relief. The first one is coming in tonight and tomorrow, in time for the already mentioned New Year's Eve festivities.

The cold will ease up a bit temporarily Tuesday and especially Wednesday, when highs could reach 20 degrees. Still cooler than normal, but not terrible. Then another Arctic surge hits next Thursday and Friday with more painful Arctic air.

No promises yet, but there are signs that starting in a little more than a week, temperatures might moderate again to near normal January temperatures. Let's hope so.

Not much snow is in the forecast, except for areas slammed by lake effect snow squalls near the Great Lakes.

Forecasters have been eyeing the possibility of a frigid, strong nor'easter next Thursday, but for now at least, most indications now are there will be a very strong storm, but it will be too far off the coast to give us much precipitation. A few computer models still bring the storm closer to the coast, so it still bears watching, just in case.

In any event, it does look like the storm would be close enough to give us strong north winds during the Arctic surge late next week, which means wind chills will be the most ridiculous yet in this cold spell.

Not everybody is hibernating amid the chill. Below is a video of a guy who has been enjoying surfing on Lake Superior during this cold blast. Never mind temperatures are below zero and wind chills are in the 20s below up there. This guy is nuts: