Blame the Arctic oscillation. Or give it credit. Depends on whether you want to play in the snow or hit the golf links, now that it’s winter. It also depends on where you live. Here in Kansas winter forgot to come when it was due. The January just completed was one of the warmer on record. December was toasty, too, as Christmas seasons go.
The Arctic oscillation wasn’t so considerate of Valdez, Alaska. It has had 328 inches of snow this season, a whopping 10 feet above average, and the whole state is in a deep freeze. The mercury sank to 66 below zero just last weekend.
The Northeast U.S. is having one of the warmest, least snowy winters on record. And that’s ski country where snow and cold turn into dollars and residents scowl when they wake up to a balmy, sunny February morning.
What the Arctic oscillation does is trap jet stream winds up north. In normal years, the winds head south and bring cold and snow down from Canada into the U.S. The oscillation, climatologists explain, is “a cousin to the famous El Nino.”
This year, they say, “the Arctic oscillation turned negative. The cold jet stream dipped in Europe and Asia but is still bottled up over North America.”
Europe’s cold wave turned deadly. Over 80 people have died as countries such as Romania experienced sub-freezing temperatures and heavy snows found them unprepared. Some of the deaths were of homeless people who had nowhere to go for warm shelter.
Early springs also take a toll. Cherry trees in Washington, D. C., for example, are budding. So is the forsythia and daffodils. Georgia’s peach trees are also confused and may send out buds so early a February frost will kill the crop.
That possibility is real.
Friday a heavy snowstorm raced out of Colorado east into Kansas. The Arctic oscillation could give up and give us winter in February on the heels of our January spring.
It won’t be up to us: Kansas weather teaches acceptance.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
