It happened to Europe last year. A persistent erosion of Arctic sea ice set off changes to the polar jet stream that locked in place a severe winter weather pattern that pummeled the central and western European countries for much of the winter. Storm after storm piled snow high in locations that typically saw only modest winter precipitation while other areas were simply buried. The US also took a glancing blow from this extreme storm configuration. But now, with a large trough in the polar Jet remaining locked in place for almost a year, the US from the Rockies eastward appears to be in the line of fire for some very severe winter weather.
In other regions from Alaska to Eastern Europe, record or near record warmth and dryness have settled in with a large swath of eastern Europe showing average temperatures more than 6 degrees Celsius above the seasonal average. Over the extreme northern Pacific, adjacent to Alaska and the Bering Sea, seasonal temperature range from 4-12 degrees Celsius above average. And it is this extreme northward invasion of warm air that is displacing polar and Arctic air masses toward the east and south, putting much of the US in the firing line for strange and severe winter weather.
Just this week, the tale was one of record ice storms throughout the central and eastern US with hundreds of flights cancelled, deadly traffic pile-ups, and holiday shopping disrupted. On the east coast, from Virginia to Maine, workers and shoppers alike were treated to three days straight of snow turning to sleet and freezing rain and then turning back again to snow. With storms like these hitting in early December and with the pattern in the Jet Stream taking on such an extreme configuration, it appears possible that the winter of 2013-2014 could be a very, very stormy one indeed.
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