Unseasonably cold weather gripped much of the nation in January and brought a term to public’s consciousness they may not have heard before: polar vortex.  As explained in a video from NASA, the ‘stretching’ of the vortex was responsible for the record-setting cold seen last month.

NASA writes:

This movie of temperature observations from NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft depicts the first major North American weather event of 2014: cold air moving out of the Arctic and south to cover much of the continent. The temperatures shown are at a pressure of 850 hectopascals (hPa, formerly knows as millibars; sea level pressure is normally around 1000 hPa). Pressures of 850 hPa correspond to an altitude of about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) above sea level. The temperatures in the movie range from about minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit (245 Kelvin or minus 28 degrees Celsius) to warmer than 66 degrees Fahrenheit (290 Kelvin or about 17 degrees Celsius). The very coldest temperatures in purples and blues are minus 18 to 17 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 28 to about minus 8 degrees Celsius).

The most obvious feature of the movie is the tongue of cold air moving out of Canada and southward to cover much of the eastern United States during early January 2014. This event was covered extensively in the media, and introduced the term ‘polar vortex’ to a broader audience.

This global perspective illustrates some features not noted in all the recent media attention. Perhaps most obvious: this is not a global phenomenon. The eastern half of the United States includes only about one percent of the total surface area of the planet (about two million of 197 million square miles). One advantage of satellite observations, as from AIRS, is coverage of the entire planet. A truly global perspective is required when studying variations in climate, and this event must be compared against a number of other phenomena occurring around the planet. Note that Alaska and northern Eurasia were warm during this period of unusual cold over the eastern United States.