HOUSTON (AP) — Winter’s brutal grip on the U.S. East is not letting up, with coming days bringing subfreezing temperatures that will plunge deep into what had been a toasty Florida peninsula and a powerful blizzard forecast that may strike the Atlantic coast.Deep cold is forecast to stick around at least into the first week of February. Meteorologists are also watching what could become a “ bomb cyclone ” — a quickly intensifying storm that’s a winter version of a hurricane — forming off the Carolinas Friday night into Saturday.“A major winter storm appears to be coming to the Carolinas,” said meteorologist Peter Mullinax of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat storm could dump snow — at least 6 inches (15 centimeters) with white-out conditions — in the Carolinas, northern Georgia and southern Virginia. After that, it could turn and plow through the Interstate 95 corridor late Saturday into Sunday to dump loads more snow from Washington to Boston, further paralyzing much of the country. Or it could deliver a glancing blow, mostly striking places like Cape Cod.Alternatively, it could just veer off harmlessly to sea. Meteorologists and forecast models aren’t yet settling on a single outcome.“The confidence is much higher that in the coastal Carolinas and Virginia that there will be significant snowfall this weekend,” said James Belanger, vice president for meteorology at the Weather Channel and its parent company. “The real question is going to be the trajectory it takes” from there.Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, said for the mid-Atlantic and north it’s a “boom or bust” situation. “If it happens (to go along the coast) it’s going to be a big-time event.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementModels still disagree on storm trackOn Tuesday forecast models were all over the place, from out to sea to inward toward Philadelphia. By Wednesday morning they started to agree that “we’re likely to see some form of a powerful coastal storm somewhere east of North Carolina, off the Delmarva coast, but they still disagree as to where,” Mullinax said.Chances of the storm veering away from the East Coast entirely had diminished Wednesday morning, but hadn’t disappeared altogether, Mullinax said.Of all the options, “from D.C. up to New York is probably the most unclear,” Mullinax s …
