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A weak polar vortex and severe winter weather


A strong polar vortex means that the winds blowing from west to east at high altitudes across the Arctic are more powerful than when the vortex slackens and meanders.

When the vortex weakens, as it did during the infamous winter of 2012-2013, and several winters since, the ultra-cold air can spill out of the Arctic, as if someone opened the door to the planet's freezer. Not surprisingly, this can lead to cold snaps and snowstorms along the U.S. East Coast, in Western Europe, as well as Eurasia.
Meanwhile, during such episodes the Arctic can be comparatively mild, leading scientists to call such patterns, "warm Arctic, cool continents" setups. These patterns occurred last winter, when several storms brought such mild air to the center of the Arctic Ocean that the North Pole reached near or above freezing for short periods of time.

During the past several years, scientists have been finding that the shape and strength of the stratospheric polar vortex is hugely important for determining what kind of winter weather will dominate large regions of the northern midlatitudes, particularly in Eurasia, which has been seeing a wintertime cooling trend overall.


“Our latest findings not only confirm the link between a weak polar vortex and severe winter weather, but also calculated how much of the observed cooling in regions like Russia and Scandinavia is linked to the weakening vortex.


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