The Polar Vortex Is Collapsing -- Here's What That Means for Your Winter Weather

By Tom Metcalfe, Live Science Contributor | January 18, 2019 02:41pm ET

The blast of Arctic weather headed for the United States this weekend could be a first sign of still worse things to come this winter, with signs that a circular low-pressure system of swirling winds that normally keeps frigid air locked up at the North Pole has been disrupted and split into smaller parts.

The disruption in this counterclockwise-spinning beast, called the polar vortex, is thought to be caused in part by a warm summer over the Arctic and a relatively cold fall over Siberia. The result for the United States and northern Europe? A severe winter lasting throughout February and possibly into March.

Meteorologist Judah Cohen agreed that the breaking up of the polar vortex could be the culprit for the coming storm. Cohen, the director of seasonal forecasting for the weather risk management company Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), based in Lexington, Massachusetts, told Live Science that the coming snowstorms in the United States this weekend are consistent with weather models that predicted severe wintry weather to come in the coming weeks. [Infographic: Earth's Atmosphere Top to Bottom]The weather models suggested that the disruptions would follow the pattern of polar vortex disruptions seen during the northern winter last year, which resulted in freezing weather across the United States in December and January, and a severe cold snap in March over the United Kingdom.

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