polar vortices
Cold air gyres
Polar vortices is the plural of polar vortex—a large area of low pressure and cold air circulating around Earth's poles.
The term entered mainstream vocabulary when weakening of these systems allows frigid Arctic air to spill southward, causing extreme winter weather: The polar vortex brought record-low temperatures to the Midwest.
Meteorologists have long studied polar vortices, but the phrase now appears in everyday weather reports.
- stratosphereSecond atmospheric layer up
- cycloneRotating low-pressure storm system
- bomb cycloneRapidly intensifying low-pressure storm
- cold snapsBrief periods of freezing weather
- arctic blastSevere cold from polar regions
deep freeze · cold wave · weather · weather patterns · jet stream · air mass · climate · climate change · circulation · temperature · wind shear · extreme weather events · meteorology · thermal inversion · extreme weather · global warming · Coriolis effect · winter storms
polar vorticestropical cyclones
Rotating warm-water storm systems
tropical storms · hurricanes · typhoons · monsoons · trade winds
polar vorticeshigh-pressure systems
Atmospheric regions of dense, sinking air
polar, vortex, pole, poles, poled, poling, polarity, polarize, polarized