Unusual Blocking Pattern Paves Way for Another Arctic Outbreak in a Few Days

ANOTHER COLD BLAST ARRIVES SUNDAY AFTERNOON!  This next cold outbreak could rank up pretty highly on the list of big cold North Carolina cold waves of the past, such as 1985, 1989 and 1996, but probably won't surpass any of those. Still, here are my thoughts as of now on the matter:

Monday temperatures will hold steady under partly cloudy skies with possibly some stray snowflakes across the county, but the big story will be the high winds and extremely cold bitter arctic airmass. Temperatures around Shelby most likely will remain under 25 degrees during the afternoon, and by dark temperatures will already be in the teens.  Snow will pile up in vast quantities across Boone, Beech Mountain and the NC high country. Snow advisories may make it all the way down to Asheville and the north Georgia mountains.
By Tuesday morning temperatures will be cold clear down to Key West and Miami, with all-time record lows possible for the Sunshine state. Miami's record low of 30 is in jeopardy on a couple of mornings. The citrus crop is will take a big hit.
Tuesday will once again be a fridig one with a 516 lobe of the Polar Vortex having been dropped on Washington DC, with atmospheric heights of atleast 5 standard deviations below normal, meaning cold air will continue gushing due south, placing the Polar Bear's crushing vice grip directly on the eastern seaboard. Almost all areas of North Carolina will stay under 30 degrees Tuesday, except a few beaches near Wilmington. Places like Charlotte and Atlanta will be in the middle 20's during the afternoon once again, with mountain communities truly in the icebox, and Asheville won't crack 18 degrees neither Monday or Tuesday.  Some of the outbanks of NC could experience rare "sound effect snow", when the winds blow just right to pickup moisture and deposit snow streamers on the banks, similar to Lake Effect snow further north.
By Wednesday, the incredibly Greenland blocking signature is literally off the charts, and the flow is superamplified in an extremely rare alignment, that assures sustained cold delivery to the Southeast and Midatlantic States. The charts for days have been highlighting Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and especially the Carolinas to be the main beneficiaries of the lowest departures from normal.
By Thursday and Friday, the cold vortex has pulled warmer air around it to its north, and well westward into Canada, and the southern stream begins to get active. Moisture should begin to approach the Southern states at the end of the week, with a strong arctic high ridging down from central Canada, so the northern shield of precip could be icy or white.






This is a view of the Medium range ECMWF and GFS models over the northern hemisphere. I've never seen blocking forecast to this extreme. Normally , when heights build over Greenland or eastern Canada, the Southeast states get cold, and eventually stormy. La Nina Winters usually feature wild swings in weather, and we're now in the cold phase of the pattern shift. At some point, we'll switch back to the warm phase and have extremely warm weather. The odds favor January at this point. During the transition will be the highest chance of some type of Winter storm.

Day 8 to Day 10 High Latitude Extreme Blocking