Polar Vortex Is Back In The News. Don't Panic, But It Could Cause Something Called "Winter"

Schematic of how something called Sudden Stratospheric Warming
can split up the Polar Vortex and send those cold pieces closer
to Europe and the United States, increasing the risk
of harsh winter weather. 

Some of you might remember the media hype back in the winters of 2014 and 2015 about the "Polar Vortex."

At the time it was hyped as some new-fangled thing unleashing supposedly apocalyptic winter despair on the nation, or something like that.  

Well, the hype is back, at least sort of. The polar vortex, or at least a particular orientation of it threatens us again. It could cause us to experience something called "winter."

The short version of this things are changing in the atmosphere, as they often do in the winter, in a way that could bring some sharp cold spells and maybe some good sized snowstorms to parts of the middle and eastern parts of the United States.

Let's explain: As non-insane people explained in the winter of 2014, the polar vortex is something that's totally, absolutely normal.  It's pretty much always there, spinning high overhead in the Arctic.

It's basically a circle of strong winds spinning around  a blob of particularly cold air up north.

Sometimes the polar vortex moves a little south, sometimes toward Europe, sometimes down into central or eastern Canada. When that happens, the cold air on the ground moves south, too.

If the polar vortex approaches Europe, it gets really cold there. If the polar vortex gets south into Canada, chances are there will be some subzero cold in the United States. Plus, depending upon how the polar vortex orients itself, some areas get decent snowstorms.

Now, I'm going to introduce another so-called villain that is getting a lot of hype this particular winter. 

It's called Sudden Stratospheric Warming. Again, it sounds terribly frightening to most people, because they've never heard of it before and it sounds like something has gone off the rails.

Well, no. Sometimes, very high in the atmosphere over the Arctic, above where most weather systems live, the air quickly gets unusually warm. Again, scientists have long known about this, and it's not like the world is going to end in 15 minutes.

Weather geeks have been going bananas since at least early December over this winter's Sudden Stratosphere Warming when forecasts first indicated it might happen and then it unfolded. Until now, I've spared you this esoteric excitement because it had absolutely zero effect on your life.

But now it looks like we're approaching the time when you might, just might, feel the effects of this thing, which we'll call SSW for short. Trust me, you're not going die.

In the weeks after an SSW develops, its effects begin to trickle down to near the Earth's surface and begins to affect the weather we experience.

The SSW very often moves the polar vortex southward, or splits it up into two or three mini-polar vortexes. That's what is happening this winter. It looks like the Northern Hemisphere is temporarily home to three of these mini-polar, um, vortexes? vortices?  

These little baby vortices  also drift south, opening the door for Arctic outbreaks to hit the mid-latitudes. That's why central and parts of southern Europe have experienced so much snow and cold over the past couple of weeks.

Another "mini polar vortex" of sorts seems to be setting up in Canada. Though this is not definite, it looks likely that this might set the eastern and central United States up for some Arctic cold for the end of January and into February.

We might already be starting to see the effects of all this. We managed to get a typical cold wave on us this weekend, and another brief one will be upon us around Thursday. Things look like they will become more active and stormy within about a week or so, but nobody yet has any idea how stormy.

Long range forecasts after that indicate repeated influxes of Arctic air and a risk of some snowstorms through the beginning of February.  This somewhat more exciting weather pattern should be established within a week here in the Northeast.

There's no telling how extreme things will get. Yes, it'll be winter. So you have to expect these spells  of Arctic cold and snowy weather.  There's also a chance that other atmospheric conditions, like a strong west-to-east jet stream coming across the Pacific Ocean into North America, could thwart many of the invasions of Arctic air from the North Pole.

On some occasions, the weather following a SSW can get awfully extreme, worse than your standard winter conditions.

That was the case in 2015, when Boston had an unprecedented snow siege. The city had 94 inches of snow in just 30 days in late January and February that year. February, 2015 in Burlington, Vermont was the third coldest on record.  I've gotten wimpy in my old age, so I'm hoping we don't get a repeat of 2015.

Last year, harsh weather after an SSW blasted much of Europe, and contributed to frigid, snowy conditions in much of the United States through March. That snowy chill lingered well into April, especially in the northern and central Plains.

If the current aftermath of a SSW brings cold, snowy weather to New England or elsewhere in the United States, it's really not possible right now to tell how long it would last or how intense it will get.  It could be just a couple weeks of rough weather. Or, worse case scenario, a couple months.

Scientists are investigating whether SSW's would become more frequent because of climate change. Some preliminary evidence suggests this is the case. Which would bring many of us in Europe and the eastern half of the United States a strange irony:

Conditions would warm up as years and decades go by, but we'd still be at risk of occasionally getting some of the harshest possible long spells of Arctic winter weather.

NOAA Releases Newsworthy, Accessible, And DIre 2018 Arctic Report Card

Fractured sea ice in the Arctic. Photo was taken in 2017 northwest of
Greenland by NASA 

NOAA just released its annual "report card" of how the Arctic is doing under a changing climate. At best, they give it a "D-" , probably an "F."

The best way to see and hear the NOAA report card is a YouTube video NOAA put out, which you can see at the bottom of this post.  

Before we get to that, here's some highlights from the report that are important:

For the past 12 years, including in 2018, sea ice extent was near record lows. Also, old ice, which has survived several years without melting, is at extremely low levels. Only 1 percent of the ice in the Arctic is four years old or older.

This is important because newer ice is much more prone to melting in the summer than the old stuff.

You might be getting sick of the next thing they point out, but it's intriguing me and it really gets to the heart of why we should care about climate change.

NOAA scientists seem to have signed on to the notion that because the Arctic is warming faster than te midlatitudes, the jet stream is getting wavier and slower. As the New York Times puts it:

"The jet stream normally acts as a kind of atmospheric spinning lasso that encircles and contains cold air near the pole; a weaker, wavering jet stream can allow Arctic blasts to travel south in winter and stall weather systems in the summer, among other effects."

Given that, it seems that because Arctic ice is getting so lame, we here in Vermont and elsewhere in our "southerly" latitudes will have to get used to more occasional severe Arctic blasts, even if winter temperatures overall are rising.

That leaves me with the impression we'll have more "boomerang" winters. Record cold, followed by record heat. Kind of like last winter, when it was 20 below on January 7, and just five days later it was 61 degrees with heavy rain and ice jams and flooding, followed two days later by subzero temperatures again.

Finally, the report says there's no indication that the Arctic will ever revert to its icier, colder former self.

I'm glad there are still some independent scientists in the U.S. government. I know our Dear Leader Trump would say this report is "fake news." But until somebody comes up with some credible evidence that these scientists are wrong, I'll go along with it.

Here's the NOAA video:

Lake Champlain In Vermont, New York and Quebec Is Approaching Flood Stage, And That's Not A Bad Thing

Record flooding on Lake Champlain in May, 2011 devastate
these camps in Colchester, Vermont. The lake is now
approaching flood stage, but the flooding won't be anything
close to the destruction of 2011.

Lake Champlain, on the Vermont, New York and Quebec is now approaching flood stage.

Given the rather rainy forecast for the next week, it will probably reach the flood stage of 100 feet above sea level in about a week or so. At least that's my guess.

Right now, it's a little over five inches below flood stage.  

Don't worry, barely above flood stage is still far below the record high of 103.27 feet above sea level on May 6, 2011. 

Three feet of water between barely flood stage and the record high level for Lake Champlain might not seem like a big difference, but it is.

Especially if you combine the record high lake level with strong winds which induce waves, you're going to get a lot of damage, like we did in 2011. 

However, if the lake is a few inches above 100 feet above sea level, as appears likely this spring, that's not so bad at all.

Sure, when the water gets this high, a few low-lying roads near the lake might flood. Perkins Pier in Burlington gets very wet underfood. And if you own a lakeshore home or camp, you might suffer some erosion damage, especially if we get some very windy days that generate big waves.

In fact, today, Sunday, the lake level is still a few inches below flood stage, but strong south winds will probably cause some splashover issues on south facing shorelines on the northern end of the lake.

However, annual minor spring flood cycles on Lake Champlain help maintain ecosystem patterns in the lake. The drawback for the ecosystem, though is some of the floods wash pollutants caused by us humans into the lake.

Once Lake Champlain starts getting above 101 feet above sea level, damage begins to get more significant.

However, so far, it looks like the lake won't get that high. True, March and April have been wetter than normal, which has raised the lake level. And more moderate rain storms seem likely this weekend, Wednesday and maybe again Friday as we remain in a relatively active weather pattern.

In 2011, we had record rainfall during the spring. In April and May combine, there was about 16.5 inches of rain in April and May, compared to a normal of a little over six inches. I'm quite sure we won't get 16.5 inches of rain in these two spring months this year.

So, high water it is on Lake Champlain this spring, but unless something extremely surprising happens there won't be a whole lot of damage.

California Drought: The State Is Totally Screwed. To A Lesser Extent, You Are, Too.

California water managers on skis and snowshoes
stick a long metal pole into the snow
on April 1, 2012 in the Sierra Nevada mountains
to measure snow and its water content.  

Yesterday, California Gov Jerry Brown and Frank Gehrke strolled out onto a nice alpine meadow in the Sierra Nevada in front of a waiting scrum of reporters.  

Gehrke held a big tall aluminum pole. There was a black piece of tape or something about two feet up the pole. About five feet up the pole, there was another piece of tape, this one green.

That piece of black tape? That was how deep the snow was on this meadow around April 1, 1977, which used to be the record for the paltriest snow cover for that time of year in the meadow. That piece of green tape was how deep the snow usually is this time of year.

This illustrates why California is screwed. Their drought is in its fourth year. The state depends upon snow melt from the Sierra to feed reservoirs and much of the state's water needs.

Months of record winter warmth has melted what little snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Snow cover is just five percent of where it should be this time of year. It's like asking for a glass of water and only getting a medicine dropper full of liquid instead.

The same site as the photo above, but this photo was taken
yesterday. There is no snow to measure amid
California's worst drought in modern history.  

Governor Brown used the occasion in that alpine meadow to announce unprecedented water restrictions on Californias. Every city is going to have to use 25 percent less water than it usually does.

California state water managers are calling the situation scary.  

Craig Miller at KQED, the public media network for northern California, said more than 400,000 acres of farmland were fallow last year because of a lack of water. That figure could double this year.

Less farming means fewer agriculture-related jobs, too. Not only farmworkers, but suppliers of farm equipment. This will have a ripple effect across the nation as farm suppliers across the United States get fewer orders from California.

You're going to feel California's drought in your wallet and your taste buds, even if you live in a place with oodles of water.

As Mother Jones points out, nearly half of all of the United State's supply of fruits, vegetables and nuts come from California.

This includes 99 percent of all our almonds and walnuts, 98 percent of our pistachios, 95 percent of broccoli and 92 percent of strawberries.

Of course, not all farmland in California will stop producing. Irrigation will continue, crops will keep growing and being distributed nationwide, but definitely to a lesser extent than in that past.

That will squeeze supply. The basic laws of supply and demand mean if the supply goes down, prices go up. Your favorite walnut strawberry dessert is about to become unaffordable.

Some farmers will also resort to pumping out more and more groundwater to make up for lost irrigation allocations from state and local water managers.

As Eric Holthaus writes in Slate, this desperate effort to reach groundwater can result in sinking ground levels and a permanent reduction in water storage capacity even when and if the rains finally return to California.

New laws aimed at reducing overuse of groundwater won't be enforced until 2040, and should be imposed much sooner than that, writes Holthaus. 

In California, people are going to have to get used to watching every drop of water they use. I know that would be hard for me, in damp old Vermont, where winter snows and spring and summer rains have been consistently reliable, knock on wood. (Sometimes too reliable: We've had a huge increase in the number and severity of floods in recent years.)

For most people, letting their lawns go brown, or replacing lawns with plants that don't use much water is the easy part. But people will continually have to be mindful of the lengths of their showers, how often they wash their clothes, how often they flush the toilet.

Some communities will run out of water entirely, Craig quotes Mark Cowin, who heads California's Department of Water Resources.

It a bit of cruel irony, over the next week as we get into April, some rain and mountain snow might fall on the northern half of California. April is traditionally the start of California's dry season, which typically lasts until late autumn.

This rain and snow won't make much difference at all in the drought. California had hoped and waited as it looked like an El Nino weather pattern might take hold. El Ninos often dump heavy winter precipitation on California.

But El Nino never really got going, until now, as it seems to be finally taking shape. Too late. El Nino does not override California's summer dry season.

For the next several months, we're going to be treated to a constant stream of news stories about California towns without water, rising food prices, wildfires and pitched political battles over who gets to use how much water in California.

Any way you look at it, the situation is ugly. And it's going to get uglier.