The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Political Ammunition => Global Warming, Its Myths and Its Truths => Topic started by: diesel driver on February 13, 2014, 12:57:50 PM
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"Polar Vortex" Isn't Being Used Correctly (http://www.roanoke.com/weather/columns_and_blogs/columns/weather_journal/article_da64b9cc-8886-11e3-a5e1-001a4bcf6878.html)
But then again, why should a lie diminish a liberal cause/religion.
“Polar vortex†has ended up being the catch-phrase of this winter. But it should be “EPO-negative.†Yes, I know “polar vortex†is a much catchier and more ominous phrase than something that sounds like the results of a test for performance-enhancing drugs. But “polar vortex†has been widely abused and misused by the media and social media, much to the chagrin of meteorologists.
The polar vortex isn’t a storm or short-term phenomenon that causes an outbreak of Arctic cold. It is a permanent feature circling the North Pole, even in summer. Any article that says something about “no polar vortex this time†is just dead wrong; it’s there, and will be there even if it’s 100 degrees sometime next summer. The shape, expanse and speed of upper-air flow and position of smaller sub-vortices within the larger polar vortex determine how much Arctic air moves away from the North Pole and where it goes. What has happened repeatedly this month is that the polar vortex has become shaped in a manner in which the core of its coldest air has been centered near Hudson Bay (even as far south as near the Great Lakes in early January) and repeated shots of extremely cold air have circled around that piece of the polar vortex into the eastern U.S. And that brings us to the EPO-negative pattern.
The Eastern Pacific Oscillation involves the alternating pattern of warm, high pressure and cold, low pressure over the northern Pacific (the eastern half of the Pacific, hence the name). This winter, really since November, the EPO has been in a strong negative state, which means high pressure builds over the northern Pacific and, in this case, extends northward over much of Alaska. That in turn pushes the deep Arctic air that typically sets up over Alaska and northwest Canada farther east and south. The EPO-negative pattern has been so strong it has overcome other factors that would typically retard the advance of Arctic cold into our region, particularly the lack of any blocking high over Greenland, which is part of the North Atlantic Oscillation that is normally more of a determinant of our winter weather pattern than the EPO. The extreme EPO-negative pattern has produced some unusual results, such as on Friday morning, when temperatures in the Roanoke and New River valleys were 40 degrees colder than those in Fairbanks, Alaska. Fairbanks, with a normal low for this time of year between minus-15 and minus-20 Fahrenheit, was sitting at a toasty 40 (above zero) while temperatures were near zero around here, and freezing rain was affecting the Houston metro area.
This pattern is finally relenting, as the core of the coldest air shifts northeast of Hudson Bay and the EPO at least temporarily switches into a positive phase. Highs by the weekend may top 50 degrees. But before that, we have this morning and Thursday morning with single-digit and teens low temperatures. It’s not the end of cold weather, as occasional cold shots appear likely into the foreseeable future, though perhaps not as extremely cold as we’ve experienced multiple mornings in recent weeks. But the next time you hear someone credit a polar vortex as causing the cold, you can note that the polar vortex was certainly involved, but only with the assistance of the EPO-negative pattern.
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It's quite a chore to try to educate low information voters. The information that is important for them to know they resist the most.
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Easier to tie in global warm..I mean climate change with a scary name like polar vortex.
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Polar vortex has been in my garden for the last 2 nights.....32 degrees here and it got some of my plants.