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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States east of the Rocky Mountains will see extreme cold in the next two to three weeks with at least one forecaster calling it the coldest in 25 years, meteorologists said on Tuesday.
"In the next six to 10 days, it will be colder than normal north of a line from Washington, D.C. to Denver," said Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather. "In the next 15 to 20 days, everybody is extremely cold including freezes into Florida and Texas.
"In the worst-case scenario, in much of the energy consuming areas of the country, from the Rockies to New England, can look at the coldest 10- to 20-day periods since the winters of 1977 and 1978," Bastardi said.
Oil and heating oil prices were up partly on colder forecasts than last Friday when the markets were last open, oil industry analysts said on Tuesday. Heating oil futures hit $1.0230 a gallon, up 4.3 percent with crude oil hitting a high of $36.20 a barrel, up 3.2 percent.
Natural gas futures hit a high of $6.315 per million British thermal units, up 5.2 percent, with the link to weather more clear, said energy traders and analysts.
And forecasters agree.
"Everybody is waking up to this," Bastardi said of the extreme cold forecasts for the next 10- to 15 days. "Natural gas is surging like crazy this morning."
Bastardi points out that he correctly predicted that New England several weeks ago would experience its lowest temperatures since 1994 or 1996, and that proved correct.
Chris Hyde, meteorologist with EarthSat forecasters, also said the next two to three weeks will be colder than normal, but he did not say whether temperatures will be as low as 1977 or 1978.
"The more notable change versus last week's forecast is across the Midwest," Hyde said. "The Boston-to-Washington D.C. corridor will continue to hang tough with the chilly readings with little volatility."
The National Weather Service is predicting that Friday the Midwest and Northeast will have temperatures 8 F to 12 F below normal, with Jan. 27 still showing below normal temperatures for northern New England and with temperatures near normal for New York City.
Forecaster Meteorlogix said the five-day outlook for the Northeast shows up to 12 F below normal by Wednesday and up to 15F below normal by Saturday. In the same time period, the Midwest will be up to 10 F below normal Wednesday and up to 4 F below normal on Saturday.
The six- to 10-day forecast shows "below normal" temperatures for the Northeast and northern part of the Midwest, Meteorlogix said on Tuesday.
Florida's citrus and vegetable growers probably not have to worry about frost in the next two weeks, Hyde said.
For the citrus-growing area from Orlando southward, EarthSat is calling for "seasonal" temperatures in its 11-15 day forecast.
"Overall, these cold air masses are not penetrating that far south," said Hyde.
Bastardi added that there will be significant snowfall over much of the Eastern United States in the next three weeks.
"Snow lovers are going to have storms and rumors of storms," Bastardi said.
"This could be one of the top five coldest Januarys in New England, in the last 50 years anyway," Bastardi said.
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