Ntxw wrote:If we're looking for an analog (it's the one showing up) is February 1989. Starts as Aleutian ridge with very similar teleconnections noted above. It was a shallow air mass and there was definitely some kind of ice storm in there. It was a brief but sharp cold snap, though we're not going to see the 1078mb (record) up in Alaska and Canada. That would be the ceiling if using analogs.
https://i.imgur.com/FPIaoAa.gif
https://i.imgur.com/Ps6vvsu.gif
I remember that freeze, Alaska had been brutally cold most of the month of January, while the lower 48 had been exceptionally warm. It took nearly a month for the air mass to build up before it finally came down in early February. IIRC Seattle got very cold in that outbreak, I think Vegas did too. At the time in TX the analog they kept mentioning was the big 1951 freeze.