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Polar vortex nootka jacket1/17/2024 "When that happens, we know we're going to get wacky weather somewhere over the Northern Hemisphere. "Sometimes it stretches, and it can even break into separate swirls," Francis told me. (For a terrific simulated 3-D animation by Lawrence showing what that looks like, check this out. As Zachary Lawrence and Amy Butler put it in their Conversation article, "Like an elastic band, the vortex usually rebounds back to its normal shape and size, maintaining its strong winds and low temperatures."īut sometimes the whack to the vortex can be so significant that it elongates greatly, or even breaks into two or more pieces. A Distorted Polar Vortexīut the circular band of strong winds can get knocked out of whack by weather systems that move lower in the atmosphere, causing it to become distorted. This helps to bottle up unimaginably frigid air: Within the confines of the vortex, temperatures can plunge lower than minus 100 degrees F. Ordinarily, the stratospheric polar vortex is tightly constrained above the Arctic, with winds blowing in excess of 100 miles per hour. When they do influence each other, how does that actually happen? It turns out that scientists have some good ideas about this, but the details aren't fully worked out. "But other times, they are completely independent of each other." She points out that sometimes the vortex and jet stream influence each other. "I make no bones saying it is not happening in the lower atmosphere - only in the stratosphere, and only in winter." "I've been on a campaign for awhile now when giving public talks, trying to explain that there is all this confusion about what the stratospheric polar vortex really is," she told me. To help me sort all of this out, and, I hope, dispel any confusion you may have, I turned to Jennifer Francis, Senior Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and an atmospheric scientist known for her research involving the polar vortex. The misconceptions go back at least to January of 2014, when a particularly extreme outbreak of Arctic cold was hailed in numerous headlines as the "polar vortex." (Okay, I admit it - I've even done it myself. Prior to last February's outbreak, there were headlines like this : "Near-blizzard conditions forecast on Cape Cod as polar vortex moves through Massachusetts." Uhm, no. "The actual polar vortex can’t put snow in your backyard, but changes in the polar vortex can load the dice for wintry weather – and this year, the dice rolled Yahtzee."Īs was the case with last February's Arctic outbreak, the dice are coming up Yahtzee once again.īlaming wicked winter weather on the polar vortex is nothing new. "As atmospheric scientists, we cringe when the term polar vortex is used to loosely refer to blasts of cold weather," Zachary Lawrence and Amy Butler wrote in The Conversation after a similar Arctic outbreak last year. (Credit: Animation by Tom Yulsman using images from ) The jet stream is forecast to make a big, sweeping southward dip, progressing roughly from west to east across much of North America, as seen in this animation running through Christmas Day.
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