The term “weather whiplash” has a deserved place in the pantheon of overused weather clichés, but the end of our current cold snap might be a legitimate use of the term. The pattern that’s allowing for such a bitter cold snap will quickly reverse and allow temperatures to dramatically rebound this weekend. Every weather headline about this cold snap has managed to work in the ultimately-clickable term “polar vortex,” which is a real term even though it sounds made up by a twentysomething content creator. The polar vortex is a stable upper-level circulation that surrounds the Arctic during the winter months. A stable polar vortex circulation around the Arctic Circle usually keeps the deepest of winter’s frigidity at latitudes where icebergs outnumber humans.

Source: Forbes January 31, 2019 04:52 UTC