## The Polar Vortex and QBO
You don’t need to be a meteorologist to tell you which way the wind blows, but you may need one to describe these more technical winter factors. both occur way up above our heads, in the stratosphere.
Everyone’s heard of the polar vortex by now, but here’s a swift refresher. There are actually two of them.Down low, in the layer where our weather happens – the troposphere – we’ve got what most people simply call the jet stream. The jet stream marks the boundary of the tropospheric polar vortex, with the real deal frigid stuff on the north side of it (in our hemisphere) and milder air to the south of it.
But there’s a second one, a companion vortex way higher up – about 10 to 30 miles above us in the stratosphere. It revs up in the fall, slows down in the spring, and usually blows west to east just like its counterpart down below.
CBS Boston
Now here’s where things get wild. The atmosphere behaves a lot like water, so think waves – big, slow, planet-sized waves. During a sudden stratospheric warming event, one of these waves pushes north toward the pole and breaks in the stratosphere. As it crashes down, air sinks and rapidly warms – sometimes by 100 degrees in just a few days. That can shove the polar vortex off the pole or even split it apart.
When the warming is strong enough, it totally rearranges the temperature balance up there. The winds don’t just weaken – they reverse direction. Instead of blowing west to east, they turn around and blow east to west. And when the vortex weakens like that, it has a habit of letting Arctic air spill southward into the places where most of us actually live. The effects can linger for a month or more.
That is what’s on the fringe of occurring this week (the very end of November).We’ve been watching to see if the winds will reverse direction,and it’s a nail-biter. During the final weekend of the month, it will either barely meet the criteria or hold a touch above.
Regardless, the impacts may not be very different either way. The overall atmospheric pattern favors a weak vort# Is a Big Snowstorm Coming to Boston This Winter? Here’s What the Data Says
CBS Boston
In the 2008-2018 stretch, we experienced an unusually high number of meaningful snowstorms.It was the snowiest 10-year period on record, and included the most remarkable sequence of snow events witnessed by anyone currently living here (2014-15).
however, nature rarely sustains such patterns indefinitely. This has been immediately followed by the 2nd *least* snowy 10-year stretch on record. Boston is approaching 2nd place for the longest period without a 6″+ snowfall, recorded the least snowy back-to-back winters on record, and is currently experiencing one of the least snowy three-winter periods on record.
But, again, nature doesn’t consistently maintain the same conditions.
therefore, a strong argument for a snowier and colder winter is simply that “it’s time for the pendulum to swing back.”
The verdict!
To summarize, here’s my forecast.
I believe we have a good chance of experiencing a colder than average winter and I don’t frequently enough…