The last three days have been brutal in Chesapeake Country, with temps hovering in the low 30s. What gives? It isn't even Thanksgiving yet! We're supposed to be taking long walks through forest paths strewn with red and gold leaves right now, right? I feel robbed of Vest Season!
Unfortunately, we might have to get used to this kind of weather, and the dreaded PV (Polar Vortex). Some scientists are actually positing that polar vortices are here to stay. One researcher with the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University has posited that as the Arctic gets warmer, the jet stream will weaken and narrow. "When you have a strong jet stream, it's like a thick rope. You can give one end a tug and not much happens." As the jet stream weakens, it becomes more like a string. Send a typhoon through that jet stream, and we'll have colder weather.
And did you know that recently a typhoon ripped through the jet stream? THANKS A LOT, NURI.
Winds in the Aleutians were in excess of 80 miles per hour. So, besides Buffalo, you can thank your lucky stars that you aren't stationed with the Coast Guard up there.
Besides the fact that the cost of wool sweaters is going to rise invariably, we're going to see a lot of changes in our local infrastructure. Last year, the salt price in Pennsylvania increased by only 9 percent, but state transportation officials said that they used about 1.2 million tons of road salt in 2013: a 43 percent increase over the five-year average. In Michigan, they're paying 120 percent more for salt this year. Sheesh.
