January was the coldest in the US since 1988 – and it is all due to an unusual polar vortex that Americans has deposited into freezing temperatures.
If you feel that you bundle in more layers and tighter your scarf this winter, it is because intense cold has walked through the lower 48 states.
Mars was in fact warmer this week than parts of Noord -Dakota, with his capital Bismarck who reached a record low of -39 degrees Fahrenheit and Hettinger, hit Tuesday -45 on Tuesday. The Gale Center on Mars was a relatively sultry -4.
Worldwide, January was the hottest on record – but not for Americans, who continuously fought against lashes and snowstorms, even in Texas and Florida.
Earlier this week, Snow Flurries was published north of San Antonio, KSAT reported. The city registered temperatures in the mid -1920s on Thursday.
The rural cold Snap is due to a polar vortex that has worn and combines with an important weather pattern, according to CNN.
The vortex is shifted in weird forms and this year is 'considerably stronger' than normal, so that cold winds are facing south than normal.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said that the “Stratospheric Polar Vortex has expanded more about North -America than normal this winter.”
The shape of the vortex – which is typically circular – is spreading in and out of and extended as a stretched rubber band, Joh Cohen, director of seasonal prediction with atmospheric and environmental research, CNN said.
January was the coldest in the US since 1988 – and it is all due to an unusual polar vortex that Americans has deposited into freezing temperatures
Worldwide, January was the hottest on record – but not for Americans, who have constantly fought against lashes and snowstorms, even in Texas and Florida
The rural cold Snap is due to a polar vortex that has worn and combines with an important weather pattern
That expansion happened at least 10 times this winter, with four times each in December and January and at least twice in February so far, Cohen said.
“I've never seen anything like that,” said Cohen.
In 2021 Research, Cohen discovered that the expansion of the polar vortex – which becomes greater as the arctic melts – has a huge impact on colder weather that extends further south, even when Texas froze that year.
It is not only the abnormal polar vortex that shivers the US this year. A weather pattern around the polar circle also influences things, according to Cohen.
The pattern, known as a blocking high, has stuck over Alaska and Northwest -Canada, causing cold air to be diverted through the jet stream to the south.
This unusual pattern has ensured that the lower 48 experiences a colder winter, while Alaska sees warmer winters, just like the rest of the world.
While the Arctic area is warming up, this strange weather pattern can become more frequent, because it also influences the jet stream. But scientists are divided on this.
'There are several ways in which people caused by man has an influence on the jet stream, but it is never clear which factor is the most important in a certain event, such as the cold saying that is now taking place,' Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Jennifer Francis told CNN
This expansion of the Polar Vortex happened at least 10 times this winter, where it took place four times each in December and January and at least twice in February so far (photo: Louisiana)
A weather pattern around the polar circle also influences us again (shown: people walk in Chicago)
The pattern, known as a blocking high, is stuck above Alaska and Noordwest -Canada, causing cold air through the jet stream to the south (depicted: a man who makes a snowman in Washington, DC)
This unusual pattern has ensured that the lower 48 experiences a colder winter, while Alaska sees warmer winters, just like the rest of the world
'It's always a combination [of factors]And it is always complicated … these extreme cold events [will] Perhaps more often happens, although they will probably not be so cold over time as the air generally warms up. '
Despite the fact that the burden of the coldest winter is in decades, our memories are short, according to UC Berkeley scientist Zeke Hausfather.
“There is no location in the US where the coldest day of the year has become colder in the last 50 years,” he said CNN.
“Our memories are short what is a normal winter.”
Despite the changing expectations of winter, 230 million Americans will see this weekend under the freezing temperatures.
But as the new week progresses, it gets warmer.
“We are going to take over some warmer Pacific Air,” meteorologist Ryan Maue told The Associated Press. “It just has to come here. It tries. '
Computer prediction models say that the polar vortex will probably extend again, causing cold air to the south and probably sent to the United States, around March 5, Cohen said.
Mars was warmer than North Dakota this week, because the capital Bismarck struck a record low of -39 degrees Fahrenheit and Hettinger, ND -45 on Tuesday. The Gale Center on Mars was a relatively sultry -4 (depicted: people swing in Philadelphia)
Computer prediction models say that the polar vortex will probably extend again, so that cold air is sent to the south and probably sent to the United States (depicted: a man who cleans up snow in Chicago)
This is quite late for a Polar Vortex stretching, Cohen said, but “this season everything seems very unusual.”
Looking at the last five winters, February – which is usually not as cold as January – continues to get the coldest temperatures of the season and that is certainly the case this year, Maue said.
Although the United States east of the Rockies – less than two percent of the surface of the world – has been in an extensive freezing, the rest of the world did not do that.
The entire earth on Monday was 0.8 degrees warmer than the average from 1991 to 2020, according to the European climate service Copernicus.
