Extreme Cold and Northeast Snowstorm

On the morning of January 21st, the temperature at International Falls dropped to -46, which was the coldest reading since January 6th, 1968. Over the following two days, another hard freeze hit the Gulf Coast.

On January 26/27, this storm hit the Northeast with up to 20 inches of snow (Great Kills, and Irvington in NY), and produced thunder snow at New York City.Other snow totals include: 18.9" at Newark airport, NJ; 19" at Central Park, NY; 17.3" at La Guardia Airport, NY; 10" at JFK Airport, NY; 13" at Bridgeport, CT; 13.7" at Islip, NY; 12" at Hartford, CT. The 57" of snow that fell at Hartford, CT for the month of January beat the old record of 45.3" set in December 1945, making it the snowiest month on record. This storm also broke several monthly snow records for January:

...SNOWIEST JANUARY ON RECORD...

...CLIMATE SITE...   ...OLD RECORD...   ...JANUARY 2011 TOTAL*...
CENTRAL PARK        27.4 INCHES (1925)        36.0 INCHES
NEWARK              31.6 INCHES (1996)        37.3 INCHES
LAGUARDIA           27.6 INCHES (1996)        32.4 INCHES
BRIDGEPORT          26.2 INCHES (1965)        41.8 INCHES
ISLIP               21.5 INCHES (2005)        34.2 INCHES

*MONTHLY SNOWFALL TOTALS AS OF 7 AM JANUARY 27 2011

On January 26th, a North Pacific storm of 954 mb was at 45N latitude:
More impressive activity from the North Pacific on the 29th:
With this much energy upstream, it is little wonder that many models are showing a winter storm which could put down 1-2 feet of snow on Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan through Wednesday, February 2nd.