"Jet stream gone wild": US forecasts blizzard, polar vortex, heat dome and atmospheric river all at once [View all]

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https://apnews.com/article/heat-dome-snow-blizzard-cold-polar-flooding-55e3baf6877e81ee1961aade3cb361c3

US forecasts blizzard, polar vortex, heat dome and atmospheric river all at once
By SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated 9:32 AM CDT, March 13, 2026

Nearly every part of the United States is getting walloped by wild weather or just about to be.

Days of downpours have begun in Hawaii. The Southwest will soon bake with day after day of record 100-degree-plus (38 Celsius-plus) heat. Two storms will dump snow by the foot over northern Great Lakes states. And the dreaded polar vortex will again invade the Midwest and East with soul-crushing Arctic chill.

This forecast of extremes comes as weather whiplash has already hit much of the East. On Wednesday, Washington, D.C., residents walked around in shorts in record-breaking 86 degrees Fahrenheit (about 30 C). On Thursday, it snowed.

“All of the country, even if you’re not necessarily seeing extremes, are going to see generally changing from cold to warm, or warm to cold to warm,” said meteorologist Marc Chenard of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.

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