Siberian air will spread across US, and inauguration is forced indoors
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The vast majority of Americans are about to get an extended taste of frigid Siberian weather. Another polar vortex disruption will stretch Arctic air across the top of the globe, with expected frigid conditions in the nation’s capital severe enough to force Donald Trump’s second inauguration indoors on Monday.
After starting in the Rockies Thursday night, the cold will blast eastward and as far south as the upper Florida peninsula over several days. Up to 280 million Americans will have a day or two where it’s colder than Anchorage, Alaska, said private meteorologist Ryan Maue.
“This would be one of the coldest outbreaks certainly of the past 10 years, 15 years,” said winter weather expert Judah Cohen of Atmospheric Environmental Research. “It’s pulling air out of Siberia. And, you know, that’s consistent with these stretches because when the polar vortex stretches, the flow starts in Siberia and ends in the United States.”
It will arrive in Washington well before Trump’s swearing-in Monday at the U.S. Capitol. The National Weather Service predicted temperatures near 22 degrees (minus-6 Celsius) at noon during the swearing-in, the coldest since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration saw temperatures plunge to 7 degrees (minus-14 Celsius). Barack Obama 2009 swearing-in was 28 degrees (minus-2 Celsius).
