Unless you are living in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer, Latin America, a Caribbean Island or Hawaii, a good part of the the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing some really rough winter weather, especially the northeastern United States.
The police department of Harlan, Kentucky think they have found the culprit who is causing the cold temperatures and snow storms (It’s not Mother Nature) and issued a warrant for her arrest.
All points bulletin!!! HPD has issued an arrest warrant for Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Suspect is a blonde female last seen wearing a long blue dress and is known to burst into song “Let it Go!” As you can see by the weather she is very dangerous. Do not attempt to apprehend her alone.
The weather is getting more extreme. An article in Scientific American discusses the link between the rapidly warming Arctic and the wavy jet stream that is causing the weird winter weather:
One thing we do know is that the polar jet stream-a fast river of wind up where jets fly that circumnavigates the northern hemisphere-has been doing some odd things in recent years.
Rather than circling in a relatively straight path, the jet stream has meandered more in north-south waves. In the west, it’s been bulging northward, arguably since December 2013-a pattern dubbed the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” by meteorologists. In the east, we’ve seen its southern-dipping counterpart, which I call the “Terribly Tenacious Trough.”
These long-lived shifts from the polar jet stream’s typical pattern have been responsible for some wicked weather this winter, with cold Arctic winds blasting everywhere from the Windy City to the Big Apple for weeks at a time.
We know that climate change is increasing the odds of extreme weather such as heatwaves, droughts and unusually heavy precipitation events, but is it making these sticky jet-stream patterns more likely, too? Maybe.
