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NorthPoleStorm

If you alive on the East Declension, Christmas 2015 was i of the about bizarre on tape. Temperatures were in the 60s and 70s across the Midwest and in the major coastal cities, with dozens of high temperature records broken across the United states. From Dec 21 – 28, at least 68 tornadoes were reported across 15 states, and the The states collectively experienced more tornado deaths in December than in the entire rest of the year combined.

This is a dandelion. Taken December 23, in Buffalo NY. Average temperature on that day is 28F.

This is a dandelion in my front end yard. Photo taken the evening of December 23, in Buffalo NY. Average temperature on that day is 28F.

The warm air that collection these events has moved on, moving over the Atlantic. Every bit information technology shifts, information technology's dragging more warm air from Spain and the Mediterranean northwards, creating 1 of the most massive Due north Atlantic storms on tape. The paradigm beneath shows the forecast temperature of roughly 33.8F (1C) at a time when the average temperature at the Due north Pole is -18F (-28C).

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That huge surge of warmth hit the North Pole this morn, simply the tempest traveling behind information technology is expected to strike both Iceland and the already flooded areas of Northern England. Storm Frank is also expected to authorize equally a "bomb cyclone" (a storm with a driblet in pressure level of 24mb or more within 24 hours).

Unprecedented warming

What makes this heat surge truly unusual is the total lack of sunlight at the North Pole. From late September to belatedly March, the sun is completely below the horizon and the pole is shrouded in darkness. There's a twilight period of approximately ii weeks before the sun appears or disappears, but we're deep in polar nighttime correct now, but days past the Winter Solstice.

According to Slate, wintertime temperatures have only crept above freezing during the Chill wintertime once, and never betwixt Dec and early on April (winter begins when the dominicus falls beneath the horizon in late September).

If you're familiar with air currents and atmospheric condition patterns at all, you lot're probably aware of the polar-dark jet stream, which forms at thirty,000 – 39,000 feet. These air currents shape weather in the northern and southern hemispheres; the East Coast deep freeze of 2014 was caused when the northern jet stream dipped much further south than is historically normal, blanketing the eastern one-half of the Usa in arctic air. This type of outcome has become more common in recent years; the jet stream's form around the planet is wobbling more than it used to.

According to climate blogger Robert Scribbler, El Nino years typically reinforce the jet stream and would work to prevent this kind of tempest from pushing warm water so deep into the North Atlantic, only that's not the instance this year. As always, the question of whether any single tempest or event is "caused" by climate change is impossible to answer — but there'southward no arguing that we're seeing increasingly erratic winter weather. This week's tempest is just the latest case of how the old rules of what nosotros considered "normal" increasingly do non apply.