After recent cold, looking forward to Phil’s visit
By the time you read this, the Polar Vortex that paid a visit late this week with its frigid arctic cold and winds will have departed. Fortunately, Southwestern Pennsylvania did not get this worst of this cold as it was concentrated in the Northern plains and Midwest. Still it was cold and with the winds, at times, a bit on the miserable side if you had to be out and about.
For those readers who look at the weather page in the 缅北禁地 you could see all of the cold developing. A week back, temperatures in Fairbanks, Alaska were between 30 and 40 degrees below zero. A few days later, Fairbanks had warmed to 32 degrees above zero and Anchorage was at 40 degrees above zero. The large mound of polar cold broke off into three pieces and traveled out of the pole region.
One went to Siberia, one to Europe and the third came to the States for a visit. The cold air was quickly transported southward by a dip in the jet- stream and transported all the way to the Gulf Coast. It was also interesting to note that a few days ago Marathon, Florida, had a high temperature pf 84 degrees while a small town in Minnesota was reporting -49 degrees and this was the actual air temperature and made for a difference between the high and low in the continental United States of 133 degrees. Imagine traveling from Florida to Minnesota and experiencing that much change in your weather.
The hype from this latest cold blast was so intense that on Wednesday morning ABC news devoted the first 12 minutes of the news cast to the weather story, trumping all political and Super Bowl news. Reporters were stationed at key sites throughout the Midwest to bring us the degree by degree fall in temperatures and like the hurricane coverage in the summer, these folks might better serve us by staying out of harm鈥檚 way.
By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the air temperature in Chicago had dropped to -15 degrees and it still had a long drop ahead. The day before, one reporter did not have a hat on and I wanted to remind him what our mother鈥檚 taught us about wearing a hat in the winter as most heat is lost through the head.
Now the good news. The cold air is gone from the Arctic and gone from our area and the promise for this coming week is for temperatures to rebound into the 40s and even a few 50s. The jet-stream pattern also seems to be changing and this should keep any cold air that starts to rebuild in the Arctic confined to the polar regions.
The next two weeks look to be above normal in the temperature department. A few days ago, I worried that Phil may stay bundled up in his burrow, now it looks he may come out to see what is going on. If he does, I think he will like the coming milder weather.
Looking forward to Phil鈥檚 visit.