January was the coldest on record in the US since 1988 – and it’s all because of an unusual polar vortex that has plunged Americans into freezing temperatures.
If you feel like you’re bundling up in more layers and wrapping your scarf tighter this winter, it’s because intense cold has been running through the lower 48 states.
In fact, Mars was warmer than parts of North Dakota this week, with its capital city Bismarck reaching a record low of -39 degrees Fahrenheit and Hettinger, N.D. hitting -45 on Tuesday. The Gale Center on Mars was a relatively balmy -4.
Globally, January was the warmest on record – but not for Americans, who have continuously battled whipping winds and snowstorms, even in Texas and Florida.
Earlier this week, snow flurries appeared north of San Antonio, KSAT reported. The city recorded temperatures in the mid-20s on Thursday.
The nationwide cold snap is due to a polar vortex that has been acting unusual and combining with a key weather pattern, according to CNN.
The vortex has been shifting into weird shapes and is ‘considerably stronger’ than usual this year, causing cold winds to be directed farther south than normal.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that the ‘stratospheric polar vortex has extended over North America more than it normally does this winter.’
The shape of the vortex – which typically circular – has been expanding in and out like a stretched rubber band, Johah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, told CNN.
January was the coldest on record in the US since 1988 – and it’s all because of an unusual polar vortex that has plunged Americans into freezing temperatures
Globally, January was the warmest on record – but not for Americans, who have continuously battled whipping winds and snowstorms, even in Texas and Florida
The nationwide cold snap is due to a polar vortex that has been acting unusual and combining with a key weather pattern
That expansion has happened at least 10 times this winter, with it occurring four times each in December and January and at least two times in February so far, Cohen said.
‘I’ve really never seen anything like it,’ Cohen said.
In 2021 research, Cohen found that the expansion of the polar vortex – which is becoming bigger as the Arctic melts – is having a huge impact on colder weather stretching farther south, including when Texas froze that year.
It’s not just the abnormal polar vortex causing the US to shiver this year. A weather pattern around the Arctic Circle is also effecting things, according to Cohen.
The pattern, known as a blocking high, has been stuck over Alaska and Northwest Canada, causing cold air to be rerouted to the south through the jet stream.
This unusual pattern has caused the Lower 48 to experience a colder winter, while Alaska is seeing warmer winters, much like the rest of the globe.
As the Arctic warms, this strange weather pattern could become more frequent as it also impacts the jet stream. But scientists are divided on this.
‘There are multiple ways that human-caused climate change is having an influence on the jet stream, but it’s never clear which factor is the most important one in any given event, like the cold spell happening now,’ Woodwell Climate Research Center Scientist Jennifer Francis told CNN
That expansion of the polar vortex has happened at least 10 times this winter, with it occurring four times each in December and January and at least two times in February so far (pictured: Louisiana)
A weather pattern around the Arctic Circle is also effecting US weather (pictured: people walking in Chicago)
The pattern, known as a blocking high, has been stuck over Alaska and Northwest Canada, causing cold air to be rerouted to south through the jet stream (pictured: a man making a snowman in Washington, DC)
This unusual pattern has caused the Lower 48 to experience a colder winter, while Alaska is seeing warmer winters, much like the rest of the globe
‘It’s always a combination [of factors], and it’s always complicated… These extreme cold events [will] perhaps happen more often, even though they probably won’t be quite as cold over time as the air generally warms.’
Despite feeling the burden of the coldest winter in decades, our memories are short, according to UC Berkeley Scientist Zeke Hausfather.
‘There’s no location in the US where the coldest day of the year has gotten colder over the last 50 years,’ he told CNN.
‘Our memories are short as to what a normal winter is.’
Despite the shifting expectations of winter, 230million Americans will see below freezing temperatures this weekend.
But as the new week progresses, it will get warmer.
‘We’re going to see some much warmer Pacific air take over,’ meteorologist Ryan Maue told the Associated Press. ‘It just has to get here. It’s trying.’
Computer forecast models say that the polar vortex is likely to stretch again, sending cold air south and probably to the United States, around March 5, Cohen said.
Mars was warmer than North Dakota this week, as its capital city Bismarck hit a record low of -39 degrees Fahrenheit and Hettinger, N.D. hit -45 on Tuesday. The Gale Center on Mars was a relatively balmy -4 (pictured: people swinging in Philadelphia)
Computer forecast models say that the polar vortex is likely to stretch again, sending cold air south and probably to the United States (pictured: a man clearing snow in Chicago)
This is quite late for a polar vortex stretching, Cohen said, but ‘this season everything seems very unusual.’
Looking at the past five winters, February – which is usually not as cold as January – keeps getting the coldest temperatures of the season and that’s certainly the case this year, Maue said.
Even though the United States east of the Rockies – less than two percent of the globe’s surface – has been in an extended freeze, the rest of the world hasn’t.
The entire Earth on Monday was 0.8 degrees warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average, according to the European climate service Copernicus.