It's April. I know. Flowers should be blooming, outdoor lunches should be starting.

But that springtime reality is a long way off for tens of millions of Americans. For people living across the Upper Midwest, Great lakes, Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, and New England, an Arctic blast and series of storm systems will make it look and feel more like February during the next week.

There are now three separate storms threatening to bring snow to parts of this swath of the country between April 4 and April 12, as bitterly cold air — courtesy of the polar vortex — blasts its way south and east to the Atlantic seaboard.

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On Friday, for example, temperatures in the north central states are likely to be at least 30 degrees below average for this time of year, with air temperatures holding below freezing all day in northern Minnesota and the Dakotas.

The National Weather Service is forecasting Minneapolis' coldest April day on record on Friday, with a high temperature of just 21 degrees Fahrenheit.

On Wednesday, the air temperature dropped to minus-6 degrees Fahrenheit in Aberdeen, South Dakota, setting a new monthly record low, the NWS found.

The combination of the Arctic cold and an active storm track across the northern two-thirds of the country will keep snow in the forecast for places that would normally have high temperatures well into the 50s and 60s Fahrenheit at this point. In Washington, D.C., where the cherry blossoms are near their peak bloom, the city is bracing for the potential of accumulating snow on Saturday.

Computer model projection showing snow, sleet, and rain across the Mid-Atlantic on Saturday morning, April 7. Image: tropicaltidbits.com

Some computer model projections show the potential for several inches of snow to fall in the D.C. area, with up to a foot of snow in the higher elevations of West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. It's possible, too, that heavy snow will extend northward to Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston on Saturday.

And that's not all.

There are early indications that a coastal storm may form on Tuesday, April 11, bringing more wintry weather to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

The cold is being driven by a large, polar vortex-associated upper level low that has set up shop near Hudson Bay, Canada for much of the latter part of this winter and into spring.

Geopotential height anomalies, showing a pinwheeling area of cold swirling about just north of the U.S.-Canada border (circled). Image: tropicaltidbits.com

This weather system is helping to keep air temperatures unusually cold across parts of western Canada into the U.S., with round after round of spring snowstorms making many locations look and feel like winter is never-ending.

The frigid start to the spring in portions of North America provides a sharp contrast to the unusually warm conditions in other parts of the world. Parts of the Arctic are seeing surface temperatures of about 30 degrees above average for this time of year, and a record-shattering heat wave hit parts of Asia at the end of March, setting national monthly heat records from Iraq to Pakistan.