[Graybeard58]

Just curious, is “polar vortex”, what we used to call a “cold front” or Arctic cold front”?

[Jack Hydrazine]

And Alberta Clipper, Arctic Express, and numerous other names.

[dennisw]

Polar votex sounds evil out of a grade-B disater movie or something the villain is using in a James Bond movie

[wku man]

Yeah, it's what some of still call "winter".

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[stilloftyhenight]

Polar Vortex = Northern Jet Stream

[FreeReign]

The Polar Vortex is a persistent Arctic or Antarctic low pressure area. Cold Arctic high pressure areas pinwheel around the Polar Vortex's counter cloackwise circuation. It's the mechanism that brings cold air south. In the northern hemisphere PVs are usually centered in Siberia and the Baffin Islands in Canada. Some years like this year the PV is located just a little further south.

Most reporters don't have a clue what it is.

Hope that explains it.

[Nowhere Man]

Just curious, is “polar vortex”, what we used to call a “cold front” or Arctic cold front”?

I remember when they were called "Alberta Clippers" too.

[P.O.E.]

NO! A polar vortex is way way way more scarier BOO!

It’s past the point of being Ridiculous, really.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Just curious, is “polar vortex”, what we used to call a “cold front” or Arctic cold front”?

In New England it used to be called the Montreal Express in my younger days. The new generation needs new names to excite themselves.

[virgil]

During the cold war, it was called a Siberian air mass. After the cold war it was called an Artic air mass. Now it’s a polar vortex.

[stormer]

No, it’s an area of low pressure that separates from the low that is generally over arctic.

[cardinal4]

I always thought when cold fronts from canada affected us here in the Midwest, it was called an Alberta Clipper..