Temperatures across the nation are about to plummet — and stay that way, making for a long, cold winter, says meteorologist Joe Bastardi, chief forecaster for WeatherBELL Analytics.
"Right now this pattern is very similar to what we saw in 1976 where we had a tremendous charge of arctic air early and it just lay around all winter," Bastardi said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"It's probably going to be one of these extended winters across the United States."
"When we look at the past patterns that set this up … we see a lot of similarities to the type of weak-to-moderate El Ninos that result in big winters for snow and cold in the United States."
Bastardi said the coming cold is part of a cyclical weather pattern, not global warming.
"People who have no idea that this cold was coming 10 days ago now try to claim it's because of global warming. You're seeing that going on, it's just an absurd argument overall," he said.
"There are certain things that happened before, they're happening again. So you see similar, not exactly the same, but similar weather events."