You may wish to find out more about the subject https://climatecrocks.com/2018/01/02/in-climate-up-the-down-escalator/
WASHINGTON (AP) — Anchorage, Alaska, was warmer Tuesday than Jacksonville, Florida. The weather in the U.S. is that upside down.
That’s because the Arctic’s deeply frigid weather escaped its regular atmospheric jail that traps the worst cold. It then meandered south to the central and eastern United States.
And this has been happening more often in recent times, scientists say.
___
WHY IS IT SO COLD?
Super cold air is normally locked up in the Arctic in the polar vortex , which is a gigantic circular weather pattern around the North Pole. A strong polar vortex keeps that cold air hemmed in.
“Then when it weakens, it causes like a dam to burst,” and the cold air heads south, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, a private firm outside Boston.
“This is not record-breaking for Canada or Alaska or northern Siberia, it’s just misplaced,” said Cohen, who had forecast a colder than normal winter for much of the U.S.
In 2017 I finished a two year project interviewing some of the world’s best known experts in Arctic studies, for the Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) update, a once in 5 year summation of all we have learned in this area.
The first 4 minutes of the video above are a clear and credible explanation of the bulge of arctic air we are currently seeing over North America, and why we will continue to see this more and more going forward.
