The polar vortex’s icy grip on much of America has Arctic Greenland seeming like a toasty vacation spot by comparison.

Meteorologists warn that the coldest burst of Arctic air this season is coming to put an icy and prolonged exclamation point on America’s winter of repeated polar vortex invasions starting this weekend.

Frigid air that normally stays trapped in the Arctic has escaped, plunging deep into the United States for an extended visit that is expected to provoke teeth-chattering but not be record-shattering.

For most Americans dreaming of a white Christmas, this year’s prospects aren’t good.

Determining an exact date is impossible, but we do have some cold guidance!

The upcoming United States winter looks likely to be a bit low on snow and extreme cold outbreaks, with federal forecasters predicting the North to get warmer than normal and the South wetter and stormier.

We’re all exhausted by this relentless heat and a viewer asked: Is this related to the El Nino, La Nina effect? Do we expect a shift anytime this year? Thanks, Greg

Forecasters say a powerful, late-winter storm combining rivers of moisture and frigid temperatures is expected to dump snow from the Deep South all the way north to the Canadian border over the weekend.

A warming earth has brought milder winters, but emerging science suggests that extreme cold spells in Texas could also result from climate change messing with complex weather processes.

A new study finds that the warming of the Arctic due to climate change has increased the number of polar vortex outbreaks, when frigid air from the far north bathes the central and eastern United States in killer cold.

An Associated Press analysis shows that the recent heat wave struck places that are warming up faster than other parts of the United States.

Meteorologists blame the all-too-familiar polar vortex. That's the polar vortex, which spins like a whirling top at the top of the planet. AdThis particular polar vortex breakdown has been a whopper. Warming in the Arctic, with shrinking sea ice, is goosing the atmospheric wave in two places, giving it more energy when it strikes the polar vortex, making it more likely to disrupt the vortex, Cohen said. PATTERN HAS BEEN OBSERVED FOR DECADESThere were strong polar vortex disruptions and cold outbreaks like this in the 1980s, Cohen said.

Two-thirds of the United States should get a warmer than normal winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted. Only Washington, northern Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas and northwestern Minnesota, will get a colder than normal winter, forecasters said. The rest of the nation will likely be closer to normal, NOAA said. Judah Cohen, a winter weather specialist for the private firm Atmospheric Environmental Research, sees a harsher winter for the Northeast than NOAA does. But he said La Nina is the strongest indicator among several for what drives winter weather.