Life-threatening arctic blast is 10th polar vortex of the winter

The coldest burst of Arctic air this season is coming to put an icy exclamation point on America’s winter of repeated polar vortex invasions, meteorologists warn. And it will stay frozen there all next week.

Different weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air that usually stays near the North Pole not just into the United States, but also Europe, several meteorologists tell The Associated Press.

This will be the 10th time this winter that the polar vortex — which keeps the coldest of Arctic air penned in at the top of the world — stretches like a rubber band to send some of that big chill south, said Judah Cohen, seasonal forecast director at the private firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research. In a normal winter, it happens maybe two or three times.

The latest projected cold outbreak first hit the northern Rockies and northern Plains Saturday. The cold is concentrated east of the Rockies with only the far American west, and central and southern Florida exempted.

Later this week, 89% of the contiguous United States will be below the freezing mark and 27% of the Lower 48 will be below zero.

Meteorologists expect strong winds to make the cold feel even worse. Every U.S. state but Hawaii, California and Florida have some or all parts forecast to have a good chance of windchills of 20 degrees or below sometime next week, the National Weather Service predicted.

Tuesday's wind chills could approach -60 in North Dakota to -30 in Iowa. Even as far south as Texas, wind chills will plummet to -10.

Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa will have “probably the most impressive” cold, with temperatures as much as 35 degrees below what’s normal for this time of year, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center. NOAA weather models predict Wednesday lows below zero in Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.