rwfromkansas wrote:I never quite know whether to post here or the winter one since it's starting to get active there, but will mostly do here since it's not Dec. 1.
Anyway, Gary Lezak from KC with the Lezak Recurring Cycle idea has an interesting video suggesting calling the SSW events more "stratospheric lowering" since he argues that changes really come from below. Not sure how accurate he is on this since I really know very little about these events except that they are rare and probably get hyped up too much.
But there is a comment on his article from somebody saying that there is still little Arctic air in Siberia and the MJO is stuck in 7. He said research indicates SSWs often happen a few weeks after progressing through 7, so if that's true, hopefully it will move through.
This is a bottom (troposphere)-up event. The Aleutian low pattern in the Pacific is what disturbed the perfect symmetry of the stratosphere PV. Think of it as a giant JENGA tower the polar PV, the bottom part got moved around and caused the upper parts to buckle. The SPV is more than just warming=cold. Sustained cold often requires a weakened SPV.
Not only that, now the Pacific jet is going equatorward, so all those Aleutian storms is diving south to US allowing cold to follow the path of least resistance with the jet, south.