polar vortexes
Cold air masses
Polar vortexes are large-scale weather patterns of cold air that circulate around the Arctic and Antarctic poles.
When the Arctic polar vortex weakens, frigid air can spill southward into normally temperate regions, causing severe cold snaps: The polar vortex brought record low temperatures to the Midwest.
The term entered mainstream vocabulary during extreme winter weather events in the 2010s.
Also spelled polar vortices.
- cold snapBrief period of bitter chill
- deep freezeIntense prolonged cold
- extreme coldSevere low temperature
- winter stormSevere cold-season weather
- bomb cycloneRapidly intensifying low-pressure storm
freezing temperatures · stratospheric · blizzard · jet stream · arctic blast · cyclones · upper atmosphere · Coriolis effect · snowstorms · climatology · climate change · ice storms · meteorology · weather modeling · air masses · atmospheric turbulence · ices · tropospheres
polar vortexesheat waves
Sustained extreme high temperatures
tropical heat · hot spells · tropical storms · warm fronts · desert heat
polar vortexestropical storms
Organized warm-ocean weather systems
tropical cyclones · hurricanes · typhoons · monsoons · tropical depressions
polar, vortex, pole, poles, polarity, polarize, polarized, polarizing, polarization