By Mary O’KEEFE

Snow has been the big weather story this past week – and it is not over yet. 

The east coast had experienced not just a “cold snap” but a “bomb cyclone” that left over a foot of snow in North Carolina and frozen water fountains in Florida. 

There are a few times in the year that, despite the fact I have now lived in California longer than I lived in Iowa, I get incredibly homesick for the midwest.  Tulip Time in Pella, Iowa is in May. The whole town is covered in so many colorful flowers. Fall is when the leaves turn and covered bridges seem to be more like paintings than reality. And winter snowstorms bring a kind of tough camaraderie among neighbors. But I have to be honest: After hearing from family and friends who had to deal with the “bomb cyclone” and are now facing more snow, ice and truly bone-chilling cold … my homesickness is not quite as strong as it was. 

At one point about 240 million people on Saturday were under cold weather advisories and extreme cold warnings in the eastern U.S. Wind chills with zero temperatures hit the south and, according to reports, South Florida saw the coldest air mass since 1989. 

Airports were crowded with travelers who dealt with thousands of flights canceled or delayed, roadways were dangerous and many had to be closed as snowplows worked overtime. 

Snowfalls of 20 inches or more were reported across the south, midwest and east coast. In Bonito Lake, New Mexico 31 inches of snow accumulation was reported after the storm. Sayre, Oklahoma saw 14 inches of snow; Red River, New Mexico recorded 13 inches; Hunter, Oklahoma received 12 inches and Enid, Oklahoma saw 11.5 inches. Then the snowstorm traveled to Missouri and Illinois which received 14.5 and 13.8 inches of snow. And then it slammed the east coast with Pennsylvania seeing record snowfall of accumulation up to 23 inches, according to CBS meteorologists. 

New York and Massachusetts saw the same totals and the North Carolina State Climate Office called it “a statewide snowstorm for the ages.” Some areas saw the biggest snowfall in several decades. 

Meteorologists describe the recent and future storm – it’s not over yet – as the polar vortex that apparently is reloading again to bring more cold to those regions. 

“The polar vortex is a ring of strong winds that circles the Arctic around 16 to 50 km (10 to 30 miles) above the Earth’s surface in the stratosphere. These winds normally form a tight barrier that keeps the coldest Arctic air locked near the North Pole. When the vortex is strong and stable, that cold air tends to stay put. But when it weakens, shifts or stretches out of shape, the barrier becomes leaky. Instead of forming a neat circle, the vortex can become distorted and ‘wavy,’ allowing lobes of cold air to spill southwards into North America, Europe or Asia. 

“The polar vortex is often confused with the polar jet stream, but they sit in completely different layers of the atmosphere. The jet stream flows much lower down, between about five and nine miles above the surface, and marks the boundary between cold polar air and warmer mid-latitude air. It plays a major role in shaping our day-to-day winter weather,” according to BBC Weather Facts. 

Two of the questions I have heard repeated over and over again are “What happened to global warming?” or “If we have global warming why are we so cold?” 

First of all, let me state (again) the term “global warming” was a term used in 1975 in an article by geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University in a science article. Before he used the term “global warming,” studies of human impact on climate had been called “inadvertent climate modification.” That didn’t really catch on, but global warming was a simple explanation for a complicated issue.

Global warming refers to the increase in overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. We are dealing with climate change. 

“Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas,” according to the United Nations Climate Action.

“One of the clearest signals of climate change is that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. As sea ice retreats, darker ocean and land surfaces are exposed, which absorb more sunlight and heat up even more quickly. That extra heat can alter atmospheric circulation patterns over the polar regions,” according to BBC Weather Focus/Facts.

Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, said this warming and ice loss can encourage the formation of so-called “blocking patterns” in the atmosphere.

These are persistent high-pressure systems that can stall weather patterns and make the jet stream more distorted.

“There is more warming occurring over the polar region than any other region,” Pastelok told BBC Science Focus.

“The lack of ice currently compared to past years has increased more, blocking patterns across the northern latitudes, which has led to more wavy or amplified jet stream patterns across the globe and more extreme weather events,” according to the BBC.

In some cases, these atmospheric changes can contribute to sudden stratospheric warming events, where temperatures in the stratosphere rise rapidly and disrupt the normal circulation around the polar vortex. When that happens, the vortex can weaken or split, making it easier for cold air to escape southward in the weeks that follow.

How much climate change contributes to the polar vortex is still debated by scientists. 

However, according to Scientific American in an article published on Jan. 28, for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture. This recent snowstorm happened in an atmosphere that has become up to five degrees C (9 degrees F) warmer than it was in past decades, according to the research organization ClimaMeter, which produced the new analysis.

“That means that the

Basically, due to the warming earth the weather we experience from hurricanes to snowstorms may not be more frequent but will be more intense … so since we haven’t been able to do what is needed to be done to help save the planet from climate change we’d better get used to more intense weather. 

For us, the weather over the next few days is about as picture perfect as you can get. Our 80s temperatures will drop to the 70s, more aligned with our average temps for this time of year. There is a chance of rain from Monday evening through Wednesday but it looks pretty light. Tuesday will see a drop in temperature to the mid-60s. The next chance of rain will be between Feb. 15 and Feb. 17.