There are more ways than we knew for the stratospheric polar vortex to get disrupted, shooting cold air southwards across ...

Stratospheric polar vortex changes still trigger brutal U.S. winter cold snaps and extreme weather despite a warming climate.

Even in a warming climate, brutal cold snaps still hammer parts of the U.S., and a new study uncovers why. High above the ...

JERUSALEM, July 11 (Xinhua) -- An international research group has found that extreme cold snaps in the United States are driven by disruptions in a high-altitude Arctic air mass called the polar ...

The mechanism involves atmospheric waves that bounce between the upper atmosphere and ground level, amplifying weather patterns and making them more extreme. Scientists call this “stratospheric wave ...

This winter, with record snow in New Orleans and drought and destructive wildfires in Southern California, has not been normal.

The polar vortex is a mass of cold air swirling high above the Arctic. Scientists closely monitor atmospheric shifts that could disrupt it and influence weather patterns on the surface. Forecasts ...

The polar vortex is a persistent area of low pressure dozens of miles above the earth's poles (both northern and southern). Because the vortex is so high up in the atmosphere, and because it's ...

The polar vortex is area of fast-moving winds well above the Earth’s surface and the jet stream that circle the Arctic during the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest months.

These polar vortex stretches are happening more frequently as the world — and especially the Arctic — warms, a 2021 paper published in the journal Science, also co-authored by Cohen, demonstrated.

Winter, which is warming faster than any other season for much of the US, seems to be making a comeback for the first time in years; this January was the coldest in the Lower 48 since 1988.