It’s about to get so cold, Florida’s Gulf Coast beaches could see snowflakes

By Meteorologist Mary Gilbert

(CNN) — A new surge of record-breaking Arctic air is sinking south over the eastern half of the United States Friday and dialing up hazardous cold to the extreme all the way to South Florida.

It will be the coldest stretch for many in Florida in 15 years and could even trigger some ocean-effect snow flurries along the state’s Gulf coast.

The new polar push comes as millions in the eastern half of the US are in the middle of an exceptional cold stretch — one of the longest in decades for some. No state east of the Rockies will be able to escape it.

More than 200 daily cold temperature records could be broken or tied through Monday as temperatures plummet more than 30 degrees below normal in some locations, especially in the South and East.

About three dozen of those records — both low temperature and coldest high temperature — are in jeopardy in the Sunshine State on Sunday and Monday.

Florida freeze

Extreme cold and freeze alerts were hoisted for much of the state on Friday in advance of the worst cold.

Below or near-freezing low temperatures are expected by Sunday morning in most of Florida. This could rupture unprotected water pipes, harm vulnerable crops and will be very dangerous for anyone without access to heat — especially if they aren’t used to the cold. It will send iguanas plummeting from their perches too.

Orlando could see a low temperature below 30 degrees for the first time in eight years. It’s forecast to hit 24 degrees there on Sunday morning, which would break the day’s record. Miami’s low temperature on Sunday morning is forecast to be around 35 degrees, which would also break the day’s record low, but still be way off its all-time lowest temperature of 28 degrees.

Wind chills — how the air actually feels to the body — will also crash to dangerously low levels on Sunday morning. Single-digit wind chills are possible as far south as the Orlando area. Frostbite could set in within two hours with these extreme wind chills.

But the biggest indicator of the abnormal cold is the low, but non-zero chance for some snow showers.

That chance will arrive in tandem with the coldest air rushing over the Gulf and into western Florida later Saturday evening. Frigid air blowing over the warm Gulf water could create a few “Gulf-effect” rain and snow showers — a similar process to lake-effect snow, but nowhere near as intense.

The best — but still very low — chance to see any snowflakes in Florida will be from Orange County through the Tampa area, according to the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay.

Unrelenting cold in storm’s aftermath

Last weekend’s historic winter storm and the brutal cold that followed have been blamed for at least 85 deaths in the US, the Associated Press reported.

More than 200,000 homes and businesses in the South caught in the cold’s vice-like grip have no power as of Friday, according to PowerOutage.us. Some have been without it for six days following the storm.

Time is almost up for crews racing to restore power before even colder weather hits: The worst will unfold Saturday and Sunday in Tennessee and Mississippi, two states hit the hardest by the storm. Each state has tens of thousands of customers without power.

Nashville and Tupelo, Mississippi, are just two of more than two dozen Southern cities that could set records on Saturday for the coldest daytime temperatures for the date.

Nashville, where power infrastructure was particularly crippled, is forecast to only reach around 20 degrees while Tupelo could approach 26 degrees. Those high temperatures are 30 degrees below normal for both cities for this time of year.

Other areas hit by the storm’s ice are also in for another freeze.

Atlanta is also likely to only climb into the mid-to-upper 20s on Saturday. The forecast high temperature of 28 would be the coldest day in the city since it topped out at 27 degrees in December 2022.

Longest-lasting cold in decades

The cold has been unrelenting since it first arrived with last weekend’s storm. The period from last weekend into next week could end up being the longest freezing stretch in Philadelphia in nearly 65 years.

The city is forecast to remain at or below freezing (32 degrees) for up to 12 full days — into next week — which would be the longest since 1961’s 15-day streak. Even a 10-day streak would be the longest since 1989.

Farther down the Interstate-95 corridor, it could be the longest freezing stretch in Washington, DC, in more than three decades. Forecasts show DC at- or below-freezing for 10 consecutive days, ending early next week. That would tie December 1989 for the longest stretch on record.

Other cities fall short of the multi-decade mark but are still really cold.

New York City could reach its longest-lasting sub-freezing stretch since 2018.

And Chicago — no stranger to freezing weather — is impressively on track to hit an even colder mark: its longest stretch of temperatures below 20 degrees since 2018.

The extreme cold will finally start to ease a bit later next week, according to forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center.

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CNN Meteorologist Chris Dolce contributed to this report.