An area stretching from Texas to Tennessee braced Wednesday for the expected arrival of freezing rain and snow, as some other parts of the country that already received an arctic blast this week prepared to go another round with the plunging polar vortex.

A developing winter storm threatens to drop snow, sleet and freezing rain on parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas as frigid air that escaped the Arctic plunges temperatures to subfreezing levels in some of the southernmost points of the U.

Arkansas’ capital, Little Rock, closed schools on Thursday and Friday in preparation for the storm, which could start dumping heavy snow on the region overnight.

According to the NWS, the Arctic polar vortex is a powerful band of west-to-east winds that develops in the stratosphere, about 10 to 30 miles above the North Pole, during the winter season. It is always present near the poles, though it weakens during summer and intensifies in winter.

DALLAS (AP) — A powerful winter storm brought heavy snow and icy conditions to parts of the U.S. South on Thursday, forcing officials to close schools, cancel flights and warn residents in some of the worst-hit areas to stay off roads as it lumbered eastward through Oklahoma and Texas.

Schools in several states will remain closed on Thursday after a winter storm brought over a foot of snow in some areas.

An area stretching from Texas to Tennessee braced Wednesday for the possible arrival of freezing rain and snow even as some parts of the U.S. hit by the plunging polar vortex this week began to shake off its icy effects.

A huge swath of the U.S. was blasted with ice, snow and wind on Monday as the polar vortex that dipped south over the weekend kept much of the country east of the Rockies in

DENVER — A powerful arctic cold front arrived in Colorado on Friday and will keep the state very cold until Wednesday. The temperature could be below freezing for at least 114 consecutive hours ...

A new blast of Arctic air sweeping from north to south will bring bone-chilling temperatures to millions of Americans this weekend and next week.

things get a little chaotic. A weaker jet stream becomes wavy and unstable, like a loose rope in the wind. This instability allows cold Arctic air from the polar vortex to spill southward into ...

But during the winter, it is joined by a second atmospheric phenomenon dubbed the polar vortex. This swirl of frigid air, located more than 10 miles above Earth’s surface, strengthens each year ...