The Polar Vortex: I'm Mad as Hell, and I'm Not Going to Take It Any More

Penn St ^ | January 24, 2014

[NYer]

Ping!

[tractorman]

They can take global warming and shove it up their polar vortex.

[ClearCase_guy]

To summarize: It’s nippy out there, and the media is hyping it.

[Paladin2]

Here's a place to check out winds:

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-81.82,43.40,1609

[Paladin2]

"It’s nippy out there"

MUCH, MUCH worse when counting wind chillz.

[donhunt]

It’s all George Bush’s fault.

[Moonman62]

The weather is out of control, and only big, bad government can protect us.

[AlexW]

All those green squiggles gave me a headache. Weather is what weather does. Cold is in the US, as warm is in the Philippines.

[BarbM]

“I'm still mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more.”

I live in Minnesota, trust me, DO NOT in anger, shake your fists at Mother Nature. Trust me.

So, what's happening in NY regarding Cuomo and de blazio?

[MeshugeMikey]

Grandpappy BUSH did BUSINESS with the VORTEXES!!!

[NautiNurse]

Whatever happened to the Alberta Clipper? Seems it has disappeared from cold weather lexicon.

Weather gimmicks are cheesy. I admit I haven't bought into alpha-named winter storms and RealFeel^TM trademark temperatures.

[Hardastarboard]

I’m sure Al Gore can easily refute this, with mathematical formulas that he can just rattle off from the top of his head.

[MountainDad]

It’s winter.
It’s cold.
Been that way a long time....

Don’t need a fancy name for it!

[ConservativeInPA]

Um ... It’s cold. It happens in winter. I’ve seen worse in the last 20 years, and certainly there have been mild winters as well. The author is makes a good argument and is definitely correct about the media. 99.9% of the media are mathematically and scientifically illiterate. Maybe that is being too kind. I doubt there is one journalist in a 1000 that is literate.

[posterchild]

bummer. I misread that as ‘polish vortex’ and was getting all excited about the coming pirogis and vodka.

[IIntense]

Our local hardware store doesn’t carry thermometers that show the “wind chill” factor. I wonder where the weather forecasters get theirs. (sarc)

[Paladin2]

"I wonder where the weather forecasters get theirs"

A Cracker Jacks Box?

It's a scam of grownup kids who didn't ever want to go to school and get a real education.

[Squawk 8888]

It’s colder than normal in Toronto this year but we’ve had worse. Back in 1997 we had six weeks of daytime highs below -15, this year the cold spells are broken up about once a week where it gets back to normal (-5C), with another break in the forecast with a -3C high tomorrow.

[Squawk 8888]

There actually is a sound formula to it, because heat loss increases with the wind speed. A wind chill of -15 means that your body loses heat at the same rate it would in calm air at -15.

There is an online wind chill calculator here.

BTW in Winnipeg they express the wind chill in minutes- as in the amount of time it takes for frostbite to set in.