7/28/2023 0 Comments Cold weather polar vortexThe Greater Toronto Area (GTA) will fall below -20☌, in areas away from the lake, and eastern Ontario will plunge below -30☌. Here's the most likely scenario for temperatures early Saturday morning (Feb. We'll have to watch intense lake-effect bands off Georgian Bay and Lake Huron as the lakes remain ice-free. Behind the low, the cold air is free to surge south. SEE ALSO: The deep freeze returns to Western Canada to end JanuaryĮarly this week, the polar vortex is meandering across Hudson Bay, but some reinforcing shots of cold air will displace the polar vortex across Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.Ī clipper system moves through on Thursday along the dividing line of Arctic air. It's been an incredibly mild stretch of weather across the country throughout January, but February will buck the trend in a big way. The most potent lobe of the polar vortex will descend across Canada late this week, and its short-lived stay will pack a punch. "Forecast models struggle with predicting a splitting of the vortex more than a week in advance.Eastern Canada has had a relatively easy winter so far, temperature-wise, but that's going to change in a hurry. The polar vortex might split further in about 10 days, "but it's unclear if this will happen," Butler said. During that time, it began to (but didn't completely) split, Cohen said. 5, the polar vortex's counter-clockwise winds reversed direction (a clue that a sudden atmospheric warming event had happened) and the vortex wandered from its usual location centered over the North Pole, toward Europe and the North Atlantic, Butler said. Related: Images of melt: Earth's vanishing ice caps It's also possible that the extreme bomb cyclone (a rapidly-forming winter storm with hurricane-strength winds) in the North Pacific a few days ago, contributed to the SSW, "but that will have to be investigated further," she said. This high-pressure, low-pressure duo is known to disrupt the stratosphere, where the polar vortex lives. "Over the last few weeks, there was a persistent high-pressure system over much of the North Atlantic and northern Europe/Asia, and a low-pressure system over the North Pacific," Butler told Live Science in an email. It's possible the SSW was caused by a high-pressure, low-pressure system, said Amy Butler, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chemical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. SSWs happen an average of six times every 10 years, and right now we're experiencing a big SSW, The Washington Post reported. SSWs happen when large-scale atmospheric waves associated with weather systems reach into the stratosphere and disrupt the polar vortex, causing it to slow down and heat up as much as 90 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) within a few days.Ĭohen noted that SSWs can be triggered by weather conditions associated with the Arctic's disappearing sea ice. It's also accepted that so-called sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events can weaken the polar vortex and make it teeter around. Not everyone agrees with this increased-Siberian-snow-and-wobbly-polar-vortex connection, but it is clear that a weakened polar vortex leads to colder winters in certain parts of the Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic stratospheric polar vortex (hereafter referred to as the polar vortex) is known to affect Northern Hemisphere winter weather on subseasonal-to-seasonal timescales 7,8,9,10,11.Persistent.
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