5/2/2024 0 Comments Wind chill chart polar vortext![]() ![]() We can see two types of cold snaps when the polar vortex breaks down and starts sharing Arctic air with us down south. LEARN MORE: The chilling truth behind wind chill and its impact on our well-beingīitterly cold temperatures remain locked in place over northern Nunavut and the ice caps of Greenland when the polar vortex is strong and stable.īut if that circulation weakens, troughs and upper-level lows can dive toward lower latitudes and drag those brutally cold temperatures south with them.Īn unstable vortex can hit quick or linger for days Meteorologists call it a ‘vortex’ because of the winds swirling around the region. This large-scale circulation of winds wraps around the higher latitudes like a wall, keeping the deepest chill of winter’s wrath confined to the far northern reaches of Canada, Scandinavia, and Siberia. The polar vortex is a broad area of low pressure high in the atmosphere above the Arctic that strengthens in the winter and weakens in the summer. A polar vortex holds back frigid air like a dam turned “polar vortex” into viral catnip on social media and thrusted it into our everyday vocabulary. Record temperatures broken across the U.S. (Climate Reanalyzer via Climate Change Institute/University of Maine)Ī particularly brutal cold snap in early 2014 sent Toronto’s nighttime lows plummeting below -15☌ through much of January and February, with Calgary enduring nights colder than -20☌ through half of February. The abnormally warm temperatures in the Arctic show how the frigid air was dislodged south into Canada during the month. Temperature anomalies across Canada in February 2014. The only hazard associated with the polar vortex is the dangerously cold air that can spill out of the Arctic toward lower latitudes, which can last for long stretches in extreme cases.Įven though the phrase has been around for more than a century, the polar vortex only broke out of weather geek circles in the early 2010s. The polar vortex isn’t a storm, nor is it dangerous on its own. That frigid feature is the polar vortex, a critical piece of our wintry puzzle that plays a starring role in the heart of winter weather forecasts-and even larger-than-life winter weather myths.ĭON'T MISS: How Colorado lows and Texas lows affect our weather in Canada The polar vortex is nothing newįew phrases in a weather forecast can send a chill down even the winter-hardiest spine quite like the polar vortex. The lowest readings ever recorded in Canada and around the northern hemisphere occurred when this Arctic feature crumpled like a leaky dam. The two layers of the atmosphere remain largely disconnected.It’s a pattern responsible for holding back the coldest temperatures on the planet. Most of the time, the stratospheric polar vortex has little impact on our weather. But a strong polar vortex does not mean storms for the US. By December and January, the stratospheric polar vortex is a full-fledged machine. ![]() The stratospheric polar vortex does not stick around year-long: It disintegrates around March and starts to regenerate again in September that is when the sun sets on the North Pole for the last time until spring. With lots of rotational energy, this counterclockwise gyre can speed with little to slow it down. That is because there is very little mixing with the air below it. It forms in a similar way but is smoother and maintains a much sharper edge. It is much more compact than its tropospheric cousin. The stratospheric polar vortex lives above and separate from the troposphere. That is when the big cold-air outbreaks happen. But once in a while, the entire fence collapses and almost all of the dogs run wild. Occasionally a few of them manage to get out and cause a few days of very cold weather. The dogs are always trying to escape through gaps in the fence. It is as if the tropospheric polar vortex is a backyard full of dogs, and the jet stream is a fence. How cold it gets in the Lower 48 depends on how much of the vortex breaks off and how far south it gets. This can lash the Lower 48 with piercing shots of cold, intense bouts of storminess and bitter wind chills well below zero. But every so often, lobes of it pinch off from the main flow and crash south. Most of the time, its harsh conditions are out of reach. The tropospheric polar vortex is the one that affects our weather.
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