A weather expert says bitter cold as bad or worse than the 2014 polar vortex outbreak is coming to North America next week, as frigid air escapes the Arctic in two icy excursions into Canada and the continental United States.
Meteorologist Ryan Maue calls it "a textbook case of an Arctic outbreak." He says the first bite of cold air will hit northern Michigan and bring extreme cold to Ontario, while the second will spin south over the Midwest and through the Great Lakes.
Maue predicts that overnight lows will dip as low as minus 25 degrees from Minneapolis to Chicago, with much worse wind chills.
He says some forecasters have nicknamed the frigid invasion of cold air "Barney" because computer forecast models show the cold air as chubby purple blobs.
