A Polar Vortex collapse sequence has begun

https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-collapse-winter-weather-europe-united-states-2021-fa/

by makepanic • 6 years ago

268 160 6 years ago

The next decade is going to be wild. We will start to really see the effects of climate change. Real consequences for every day lives in the western world.

Prepare for erratic weather. Storm's coming.

chippy2• 6 years ago

as an environmentalist, we've been saying this since the 70's. As an educator I'd caution against fear as a motivation for societal change, but I understand that many think that its good to cause fear and panic for the benefit of the globe and everyone on it (after all, we teach children to be afraid of dangerous things).

iagovar• 6 years ago

You've saying this since the 70s, how much change on people minds did you achieve without fear?

NewHereBeNice• 6 years ago

Your statement has no basis in scientific fact whatsoever.

The timeline for severe consequential effects of climate change are a hundred years away.

Your hysteria only damages the climate change cause, because in 10 years time people will use proclamations such as yours to deny climate science.

Ma8ee2• 6 years ago

I don’t know what you are considering severe, but I think that both Australia and California might disagree with you after the fires last year.

hyko3• 6 years ago

I understand your sentiment, but most westerner’s everyday lives will not be affected by climate change this decade, outside of government initiatives to help solve the problem. That’s why it’s so damn unfair: it’s the poorest people in the world that will bear the early burden.

It’s my opinion that if we give people in the west unrealistic timelines, it will only serve to undermine the political effort to solve the issues for the long term.

ciceryadam• 6 years ago

European heatwave of 2003 resulted in 50-70k deaths [0]. It will be chump change in comparison of having uninhabitable regions of South East Asia when the wet bulb temperature reaches 35C (95F), but it already affects Western Europe. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave

refurb• 6 years ago

Do you have a source that lays out why this decade versus 2000 or 2010 will “be wild”?

MaslowsPyramid• 6 years ago

For those wondering, if this does occur it would affect Canadians as well. [1] The source states it is not a guaranteed event.

1: https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/face-numbingly-cold-w...

raverbashing• 6 years ago

It does affect Canada sometimes already (example, winter of 2014)

Havoc• 6 years ago

Not sure collapsing is the right word here. Sounded to me more like a portion split off

Learning2-2• 6 years ago

The warm period in December has a word in Norwegian: kakelinna, traditionally thought to be caused by excessive baking before Christmas. https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakelinna

djxfade• 6 years ago

Interesting, I am Norwegian, and have never ever heard this phrase in my life

turbonoobie• 6 years ago

Ditto

e12e• 6 years ago

I've heard it frequently growing up in tromsø.

We have our share of bizarre weather this winter - while it's customary for snow to melt right before Christmas - I can't recall there being this little snow not only in December - but through Christmas and well into January.

I just went for a walk and watched people skating on the nearest pond - which is usually frozen this time of year, but also covered in a meter or more of snow.

Meanwhile they're having a white Christmas in Bergen.

larsiusprime• 6 years ago

Same here, TIL!

YeGoblynQueenne• 6 years ago

In Greek it's "Halcyon days", after Halcyone (or Alcyone) the daughter of Aeolus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcyone_and_Ceyx

The phrase "halcyon days" seems to be used in English also for the warm days in the middle of winter:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/halcyon_days

I'm not sure how common this warm mid-winter period is in general but I've certainly noticed it in the 15 years I've lived in the UK and it must have been common in Greece in the past also. In recent years, also, but Greek winters in modern times tend to be very mild anyway. Nothing like in Norawy, I'm sure :)

JackFr• 6 years ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/as-polar-...

Fewer cool graphics but much more understandable article.

reddotX2• 6 years ago

paywall

wiz21c3• 6 years ago

thx for posting this, it is much quieter and basically says that the situation is ok, nothing too special at all.

bamboozled2• 6 years ago

A really long article with a lot of speculation...

sam_goody• 6 years ago

But a lot of imagery, which gives the impression of "fact". There is a lesson to be learned here.

0df8dkdf• 6 years ago

speculation is good right? As long as the author state that it is speculation.

bamboozled2• 6 years ago

Didn't say it was bad, just warning people that it is what it is.

2ion• 6 years ago

I like that they added a lot of plots. They basically explained the plots. The plots are interesting to read. I haven't looked at this kind of climate info for a long time so I like reading this kind of thing from time to time.

protomyth3• 6 years ago

If you just moved to a northern climate and have been saying this isn't that bad, then this is a bit of a wake-up call to make sure you are ready for winter. I still do recommend that you keep one of those shiny silver mylar survival blankets in your car. It works not only for warmth but also to put outside the car if you are off road and need to be spotted. Keep a week's worth of good at home that doesn't need electricity to prepare. Power outages in extreme cold are a pain.

heavenlyblue• 6 years ago

Which country are you speaking about?

protomyth3• 6 years ago

USA since a lot of commuting, but I think safety is pretty universal. Depending on infrastructure in any place the climate can kill you might not be a good idea.

sjg007• 6 years ago

I agree. The polar vortex is no joke.

dlkinney• 6 years ago

I think it's important to dispute your recommendation to keep a mylar blanket in case of emergency.

Those blankets have practically zero thermal advantage, and really are only good to deflect wind, rain, and snow. (As well as signaling.)

Please keep a large wool blanket in your vehicle if you are in a location that threatens extreme cold with the inability to walk to safety.

I would hate for someone to be stuck in a tight spot and realize the useless thermal properties of those blankets the hard way.

protomyth3• 6 years ago

Well, the one I bought works damn well for heat and had one huge advantage over wool. I can bungee cord it to my car and be very, very visible to any search going on to find me.

I would hope people going out in winter also have proper coats and pants, but extra blankets as well a proper survival kit is a very good thing. Small grain shovels are also quite nice.

Ma8ee2• 6 years ago

People in cold climate know to always have a full set of outdoor clothes in the car, either wearing them or in a bag even for shorter drives. You don’t want to be the guy who freezes to death after not bothering to put on a jacket since you are only picking up a pizza in the next village 3 miles away and then freezing to death because your car broke down.

awestroke• 6 years ago

Yes. Keep wool clothes and a set of winter coveralls to quickly put on in an emergency

mradmin• 6 years ago

I don't understand the title. Does the OP not understand the difference between Europe and the EU?

rebuilder• 6 years ago

Or US and North America?

DavidVoid• 6 years ago

EU (without the the) is sometimes used as shorthand for Europe, especially when space is limited. It is technically incorrect, but so is referring to the US as America or to North America as the US.

daneel_w• 6 years ago

Only by US media and politicians. Nobody in Europe, nor elsewhere, refers to Europe as EU for short.

vsupalov• 6 years ago

At long last, winter is coming.

braindongle3• 6 years ago

This is great. People who don't trust experts and cynically think that everything is political can readily say "It's really cold! See, global warming and climate change are fake!" Here we see that the polar vortex isn't extra-strong this year, it's extra-week, and the breakdown may send chunks of it southward.

This armchair level of understanding (even if my summary is not right on the nose) is what we need when we encounter people who actually want to politicize the weather. Will we defeat ignorance, or will ignorance defeat us?

vkou• 6 years ago

Will we defeat ignorance, or will ignorance defeat us?

It's not ignorance that's the problem. The people orchestrating global warming denialism aren't stupid - they are just cynically self-serving.

thysultan• 6 years ago

Then stop using the word global warming, poor marketing, when it gets cools(which it will) instead of warm it starts to look and sound a con. The more enlightened skeptics are more so "human caused" climate change skeptics than anything else, with the sun as their main point of origin.

braindongle3• 6 years ago

Is it one or the other? I don't know anything about dark rooms where captains of industry who profit from fossil fuels orchestrate climate denialism. Sounds plausible. But in any event, such efforts are surely more difficult, if possible at all, with an informed citizenry.

patall• 6 years ago

This kind of article has caused my father, who hasnt seen any snow this winter so far, to buy two new snow shovels for my grandmother (who has not seen any ground snow either and already has a dedicated snow shovel and a plower). When I asked 'why', he told me he read of a 'professional' snow shoveler who has multiple shovels for different types of snow. Meanwhile, in my area we are snow coverred for two weeks now (pretty standard around here) and pretty much everyone in the neighboorhood has a single shovel and a vanilla broom for the task.

Yeah, we have seen the pictures from Madrid but come-on, you dont have to prepare like its gonna be 6 feet of snow tomorrow.

fy202• 6 years ago

It's very interesting to contrast how different regions handle extreme (to that region) weather. I was raised in the UK where 10cm of snow pretty much means the country is shut down for a week (interestingly the same happens in 'extreme heat' of 30c).

Where I live now there was 30cm of snow in the last couple of days and everyone is happy and playing outside, and tomorrow will be work as usual (well for covid). Most major roads have been swept, and those that aren't you just drive a little more careful. I guess there is a different level of preparedness (here you are required by law to have winter tires on your car), but still it seems like some places treat it as an end-of-the-world scenario as if it's impossible for humans to live like that.

GordonS3• 6 years ago

Same here. I live in North East Scotland, but have spent a lot of time in Norway with work over the past 20 years (I'm actually closer to Norway than to London!). If there's so much as a sprinkling of snow over here, airports shut down and there are car crashes everywhere - meanwhile in Norway, it's business as usual. Also in Norway, if you have a car you must by law fit winter tyres during snow season.

mech422• 6 years ago

Growing up in New Hampshire, you had to pray for 18-24" of snow overnight to get off school...

Desperately listening to the radio as they read off the list of school closures was the local sport :-P

Zenst3• 6 years ago

One aspect of the UK is when we have snow, it's been a long time since the last snowfall and drivers will have time to adjust and in that time, things happen. This is true of first snow in all countries, though in many, they have had more experience.

The other factor is the UK road system is kinda densely used with many bottlenecks already and any factor will quickly increase that, so a few flakes will see drivers over or under compensate causing a ripple that can turn into waves very quickly.

But it's always fun. The dynamics of the UK weather sure do make for interesting repercussions and whilst those same dynamics play out in other countries, they are more stable and more adjusted to such things.

Just look at how lock-downs impact area's, peoples habits changing suddenly has ripple effects and in the UK - toilet roll is serious business.

Another way to view it is - a covering of snow, even less than 1CM in London is headline news in the UK. You probably have to look at Miami to get a comparable response to snow.

bluedino• 6 years ago

Doesn’t the polar vortex make it “too cold” for snow?

Zenst3• 6 years ago

The too cold for snow is based upon most cold being from high pressure in the UK at least and with that you don't get the moisture in the air - snow in the UK is mostly a clash of warm/cold are battling from Europe and the Atlantic. Hence we see most snow with good cold easterly and battling lows comming in hitting that cold air.

But as a child I too always questioned the saying "too cold for snow", the high pressure aspect is why as a rule of thumb, it works for the UK, but always exceptions to rules.

bioinformatics• 6 years ago

Wait a couple of years, or maybe four, nah, let's say 10, or 20, probably close to 30 and snow will be a thing of the past. Better say, 50. OK, by 2100.

boringg2• 6 years ago

My sense is that there is so much pressure in the weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic. The amount of snow storms that are going to be heavy snow and dangerous condition have been overblown to the point that I don’t believe them until after the snow is down. I recognize the aspect of public safety element of calling storms though there is significant risk of crying wolf. I would never have considered myself someone who would fall into that category but the poor level of accuracy has forced me in that route. I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through.

For the record I track weather for a multitude of sports are dependent on specific aspects so am close to the forecasting nature.

simias2• 6 years ago

I have a different take on this, I suspect the problem is not necessarily self-serving ad clicks and revenue. I think there's pressure within the scientific community to come up with concrete and tangible threats linked to global warming.

Otherwise all you have is stuff like "global temperatures are going to rise by n degrees over the course of the century" with n being a relatively low number for us humans used to local weather having much greater temperature swings. Sure, if we're educated we can understand why this is a huge problem, but for people who don't want to hear this (and may benefit in the short term from not hearing it) "the weather is going to be 5 degrees hotter in a century" doesn't sound all that bad.

So in order to cut through some scientists look for more dramatic events that could come as a consequence of this. The problem of course is that the climate is wild and hard to predict over large timescales and sometimes they're wrong, and then the climate change deniers use that as evidence that they're lying.

boringg2• 6 years ago

Interesting take. I would counter and say that climate over the long run is much easier to predict then in the short run. The localized effects, high variability and shorter term impacts are way more challenging.

I would say that the impact to global weather phenomenons are might not be well understood though that seems more like local (large local like continent wide) impacts as opposed to general global weather trend.

ImprovedSilence• 6 years ago

I think its a combination of both your thoughts and the OP. Using words like “collapsing” is sensationalist garbage for something that happens most years and instills fear regarding climate change. But now we have names (as in proper nouns) for every small drop of precipitation, thats purely for selling eyeballs. Also missed calls for lots of snow have been a thing forever. The exact line between inches of snow and a little rain or nothing is tough to pin down. I remember 25 years ago being off school because of a big snow that never came. Thats not a new phenomenon.

egwor• 6 years ago

Note that with global warming the gulf stream can change course and so some countries will actually be cooler (not warmer) in winter.

DeBraid2• 6 years ago

100% this. Weather has gone the way of news: sensationalized for clicks. The volume of 'severe weather' risks that turn out as nothing-burgers in the past 5 years is staggering (Southern Ontario, both winter and summer).

originalvichy• 6 years ago

I don’t know where you live but in Finland the weather forecasts have been a part of tabloid sexy news for a while. People are eager to hear if we will have an early summer or a late winter and so on. There might be a case for doom porn but for me it’s as common as celebrity news.

throwaway2245• 6 years ago

The Daily Express newspaper in the UK is quite famous for regularly having extreme weather on its front pages, and has been for as long as I can remember.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+express+weather&atb=v81-1&ia...

I've just noticed they use Celsius to make it seem cold and still use Fahrenheit to make is seem hot. (Temperature in Fahrenheit has not been printed by the national weather forecaster since 1970).

So, it's not really a new trend.

randlet• 6 years ago

In Canada I highly recommend weather.gc.ca which is way less sensational than other sources and has a nice speedy interface.

esarbe2• 6 years ago

And yet the hottest 10 years in recorded history are 2009, 2005, 2013, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2019, 2016.

Yeah. Nothingburger.

smoyer• 6 years ago

So the headline should have read "The Polar Vortex over the Arctic is Collapsing and You won't Believe what happens next"

bb123• 6 years ago

Is there not a government run forecasting service where you are? In the UK the Met office is the only source of whether information I will trust. The rest is click bait.

kitd• 6 years ago

Funnily enough, that other government-run service, the BBC, no longer use the Met Office for their forecasts. They switched to Meteogroup 2 years ago.

d0gbread• 6 years ago

Yes, in the US there's weather.gov. The govt has a vested interest in settling people down (...usually) and the opposite for the media/weather so I like to bounce between both for larger storms.

ReactiveJelly• 6 years ago

weather.gov is nice - It shows the highs, lows, and precipitation for the next few days. The hourly temperature graphs also exist.

And no ads, because our taxes pay for it. I'm not sure why anyone uses any other website at all. Maybe it's because of the conspiracy to privatize forecasting and extract rent from it.

TheOtherHobbes3• 6 years ago

It snowed heavily in Madrid a couple of days ago for the first time in decades, causing utter chaos. It's around 5C colder than the usual seasonal average where I am.

My sense - and the sense of many working in climate science and media monitoring - is that there's a climate change denial industry [1] which is working very hard to lie about the catastrophic effects of developing climate change, and also to shift blame away from those responsible for causing them.

[1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1259-9_...

wiz21c3• 6 years ago

If it's sooooo important to get the word out, then why is this behind a firewall ? Why don't they publish that openly ?

tharkun__• 6 years ago

And we've had an unusually warm end of December and start of January. Only one big dumping of snow and then hovering around freezing. Not normal where I am. It's too warm here.

I see we are supposed to get snow end of Jan now. Of course weather forecasts here really suck and you can't trust the weekend forecast until its Friday afternoon.

itsoktocry• 6 years ago

My sense - and the sense of many working in climate science and media monitoring - is that there's a climate change denial industry

There is, which is why it's a disservice -- and unscientific -- to say things like: it's colder than usual today == climate change.

If you attribute every daily variance in the weather to the climate crisis, is it any wonder people stop believing or caring?

LanceH2• 6 years ago

Those warning about climate change are partially to blame. I was saying decades ago that touting the "hottest summer on record" as proof of global warming isn't actually proof and would come back to disrupt the conversation.

And here we are, equally "valid" proof that global warming is not real.

I'm not absolving the people intentionally distorting the facts, but the people who centered the conversation on local maxima bear some blame for the shakiness of the conversation.

sakopov• 6 years ago

I'm trying to connect your comment to parent comment and I'm struggling to find correlations. Are you implying that there are powers at play responsible for sensationalizing weather headlines to make forecasting seem untrustworthy?

heliodor• 6 years ago

Part of that seems to be the use of dramatic vocabulary: "collapsing" "hounds"

Or my favorite: "bomb cyclone"

interestica2• 6 years ago

crying wolf

The thing that struck me with the headline was the use of "arctic hounds" as an unnecessary metaphor (to help sensationalize). Now, with your comment, it maybe just seems all too fitting. Metametaphor.

BlueTemplar2• 6 years ago

You shouldn't trust the headline. The article itself is much more ambivalent.

BlueTemplar2• 6 years ago

I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through.

What very dramatic prediction ?

The 'collapsed' arctic vortex, like in 2004 and 2013, might or might not result in the "Beast from the East" in Europe, and its USA equivalent – too soon to tell.

As for snow, Spain already had quite exceptional snow.

maxsilver• 6 years ago

weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic.

Which is sad, because there shouldn't even be a "weather industry". NOAA / National Weather Service gives away a free weather report to every American for nearly every place in the entire US. There shouldn't be a reliable way to "overhype" weather.

nickpp2• 6 years ago

Really looking forward to it. It's like it's still autumn around here.

Dumblydorr• 6 years ago

Checked this site out on mobile: tons of ads, pop up video ad, super ugly distracting ads too. Can anyone here suggest a way to adblock for chrome on android?

wcoenen• 6 years ago

The Brave browser for Android is chrome-based and blocks ads by default. There is some controversy here on HN around Brave for other reasons, but I found that it works well for this purpose.

mFixman• 6 years ago

Why not just use Firefox? It's far better than Chrome on mobile and it has extensions.

c0nsumer2• 6 years ago

I just hope this means more snow in Southeast Michigan. Something like a few days of 2" per day, then a decent dusting every night, would be excellent. With many of us looking for nice outdoor activities during COVID times, thus far it's been an awful winter.

We got a bit of snow, then some rain, and all the packed snow on trails and paths where people walk, hike, run, and bike have become sheets of ice. Snow is great for outdoor winter stuff, but ice is really hard to deal with.

swsieber• 6 years ago

Hopefully it means more snow in Utah. It's been very dry this year, which means summer will be very dry and hot since there won't be much mountain melt run-off.

MikeKusold• 6 years ago

Kahtoola micro spikes are great for hiking on ice. Infinitely better than Yak Tracks on a trail.

whalesalad• 6 years ago

Hi neighbor. Hoping for the same thing too! Detroit is probably the worst place to live in all of Michigan if you are someone who enjoys nature and being outside. I’m in the Woodward corridor and can’t wait to get out west into the woods.

c0nsumer2• 6 years ago

I'm, kinda thankfully, about 20 miles north of there so I'm close to a whole bunch of parks. It's still not ideal being the northern suburbs and all, but within 30 minutes drive I've got half a dozen nice green areas, and a few within 10.

dangoor• 6 years ago

I'm curious to see what happens, but so far this winter has been _mild_ to say the least. Current forecast calls for 40+ on Wednesday and Thursday which is very-not-January-like.

A good snow would totally be fun, though. I just got new boots, too!

tzs• 6 years ago

I'll pray to the weather gods to send whatever snow would have come to the Puget Sound region of Washington your way.

Snow here sucks, for 4 reasons.

1. More than a couple inches on the ground is rare enough that cities and counties do not have a lot of snow clearing equipment. So when we get one the rare incidents of a foot or more on the ground, it takes forever for the streets to be cleared.

2. Most people aren't familiar with driving on snow, so even when the roads are passable it sucks.

3. People are idiots. As a columnist in the Seattle Times once put it, they will be at the top of a steep hill, have just watched 20 other cars try to make it down and lose control, and think "I've got a Subaru Forester so I'll be fine" and become car #21 in the heap at the bottom.

4. The ground here is relatively warm during the winter. It quickly melts the first layer of snow, which then refreezes as smooth ice sheet when subsequent layers of snow pile up. So where places with cold ground have snow with road underneath, we get snow with an ice sheet underneath between it and the road. We end up with roads that are technically more challenging to drive on, which makes #2 even worse.

tomlong• 6 years ago

Putting aside how good the actual predictions are, I really enjoyed how this was written. It explained things in a manner that I could understand, and I don't have meteorological knowledge beyond what I could glean off a weather forecast.

throwaway5752• 6 years ago

People talking about how they are looking forward to warm weather: you are selfish ghouls. People are already dying from refugee and crop failure situations around the world.

postalrat• 6 years ago

Worse crops in some areas. Better in others.

adrianN• 6 years ago

Invest in Siberia and Canada now. Don't forget to also invest in weapons to keep millions of refugees out of the new bread baskets.

h2odragon• 6 years ago

20 screen pages to say it's expected to snow in January. /smartass

Actually a decent explanation of what "polar vortex" means and a good illustration of how it causes winter weather. Without even "and this means the end of humanity tomorrow!" hype.

A Polar Vortex collapse sequence has begun

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