35.5 INCHES OF SNOW: STORM LIKELY SHATTERS 122-YEAR RECORD IN NEW JERSEY

MOUNT ARLINGTON, US: This week’s storm appears to have broken a 122-year-old record for the most snow in a New Jersey community from one storm. Mount Arlington, in the northern part of the state, got 35.5 inches of snow in the storm, which lasted about three days, the National Weather Service noted on Tuesday in a preliminary report.

It could take months to confirm the total and the new record, though. The snowfall report came from a trained weather observer, and officials note there’s no reason to doubt its veracity. If confirmed, it would top the record of 34 inches that fell during a blizzard February 11-14 in Cape May County in southern New Jersey in 1899. Mount Arlington, in Morris County, is about 69km west of New York City.

Weathermen say that the coldest stab of the season is about to strike central US. A snowstorm is expected to roar through the Midwest starting Wednesday night, followed by biting cold over the next few days that will drag temperatures in Chicago down to minus 18 degrees Celsius by Saturday.

The cold snap comes after the air above the Arctic began to warm last month. The weather pattern, called a sudden stratospheric warming, is followed by a weakening of the polar vortex, the girdle of wind that keeps cold bottled up at the North Pole.

When that happens, frigid air can spill south into North America, Asia and Europe. It’s the same pattern that plunged temperatures in Chicago to minus 16 in 2014.