The Polar Vortex. Sounds like scenes from the apocalyptic movie The Day After Tomorrow; a bit of a down-draft and everything freezes. The real vortex refers to a low-pressure system with a cold, west-to-east flowing (counter clockwise) air mass that hovers over the north pole (there is also a vortex over Antarctica). When stable, the cold air remains in the north, contained by the polar jet stream. When unstable, as sometimes happens in winter, the polar jet stream meanders such that cold air can penetrate much farther south.

February is deep winter in the Arctic, and yet current temperatures there are hovering around zero degrees C; almost T-shirt weather.  Warm air masses are being allowed to enter this normally frozen domain, while the cold snaps (March 2018) are wedged into southern Canada, USA and Europe. Arctic winter temperatures are abnormally high, significantly higher than past recorded temperature anomalies.  Is something happening to the Polar Vortex; is it in a state of decay? And if so, is this process part of some long-term climate change, or is it just another anomalous spike on the climate record? None of the answers proffered so far are definitive, at least from a scientific point of view (mind you, the media are having a field day). Science will go some way to resolving this problem by observing how jet streams respond over the next few decades. Continue reading →