5 ms·

It's a hoot that the weather has been made to be so dramatic with terms like "polar vortex" and named storms for what used to be thought of as fairly pedestrian

It's a hoot that the weather has been made to be so dramatic with terms like "polar vortex" and named storms for what used to be thought of as fairly pedestrian occurrences.

samatman 4y ago
The imputation of drama to "polar vortex" is entirely in how you see it. "Polar" refers to the poles, in this case the North geometric pole, and "vortex" is an exact description of what wind is doing in a polar vortex. Storms have been given names since the early 19th century, so your "used to be" here is well beyond the threshold of living memory.
- tomohawk 4y ago
  Tropical cyclones have been given names for a long time, but that's not what I was referring to. Now-a-days snowstorms and other run-of-the mill phenomena are given names. That's pretty recent. And is it really "entirely" in how I see it? I'm referring to the breathless intonation of modern weather talking heads as they discuss normal weather phenomena as a "polar vortex" (in scare quotes). They used to just say it was going to snow more or be colder. The use of "polar vortex" in that context definitely amps up the drama.
  - abracadaniel 4y ago
    Because polar vortex storms aren’t a very common phenomenon. Aside from the past couple of years, the previous occurrences seem to be 2014-2015, 2013-2014, and then 1985 prior to that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex So, we have a very rare, very extreme weather phenomenon that’s hit multiple in the last 10 years after decades of static behavior. The wiki on the Polar Vortex even attributes the 2013 storm with popularizing the term due to the heavy reporting.
    - tjr225 4y ago
      And yet if you talk to any older person they’ll tell you winter used to be worse/more snow/etc, so perhaps the heavy reporting is the real culprit.
      - Izkata 4y ago
        This isn't a general-winter-weather thing like that. The polar vortex is a very particular phenomena that only lasts 1-3 days* and doesn't necessarily come with snow. Its signature is just extreme cold, on the order of -40 degrees or lower, even in areas that only very rarely go below -5 F (-20 C). * technically it's always there around the north pole, but we only talk about it when it dips down into populated areas.
- rufus_foreman 4y ago
  >> Storms have been given names since the early 19th century, so your "used to be" here is well beyond the threshold of living memory My interpretation of the parent post is that it refers to the naming of every typical winter storm during a season, which was begun by the Weather Channel in 2012. I do in fact remember the debate at the time over that practice. Wikipedia gives only two examples of winter storm names predating 1900, "The Great Snow of 1717" and "The Schoolhouse Blizzard" or "Children's Blizzard" of 1888. That seems to be a different practice than winter storms Ajax, Bella, Cara, Delphi, Echo and Ferus of the 2021-2022 season.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  California has implemented a plan to name heat-waves. After the last few years on the Western side of North America, maybe not a bad thing.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
btilly 4y ago
Unless you are over 70, named storms and the polar vortex have been a feature of meteorological reporting since before you were born. Your impression that this a change is due to your ignorance.
- tomohawk 4y ago
  Thanks for keeping it classy on HN! I'm not over 70, but you never used to hear "polar vortex" in popular weather forecasting broadcasts. I'm not a meteorologist, so I can't comment on its use by pros. And you never used to hear about named storms unless they were tropical cyclones.
  - LocalPCGuy 4y ago
    The media (and weather broadcasts) latched onto the term in the 2013/2014 winter, and has been using it ever since. And the media is prone to over-exaggeration, we know that, no argument. There have even been scientific papers about whether the use of the term is problematic and how to best describe it to non-experts. Even using the word ignorant, as the person you replied to above did, is not a slight IMO (at least, I don't see it that way, I see it, in the context used, as a descriptive term for "the state of not knowing"). The point being, the weather phenomena is not new, nor is using polar vortex to describe it. And just because you hear about something in the media for the first time and it seems exaggerated, that does not necessarily invalidate it or somehow make it a "pedestrian event" being over-hyped. It could be, but in this specific case, it definitely does not. And those words, as explained elsewhere, are the correct words to use from a descriptive point of view. > The earliest scientific papers describing the broad-scale tropospheric or stratospheric flow as a “circumpolar vortex” or “polar vortex” are from the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Although a much earlier usage appears on pg 430 of Littell’s Living Age Map, 12 November 1853.)
  - zamalek 4y ago
    > you never used to hear "polar vortex" Because it was behaving in a manner consistent with at least a few thousand years. > And you never used to hear about named storms unless they were tropical cyclones. Which is no different to today?

It's a hoot that the weather has been made to be so dramatic with terms like "polar vortex" and named storms for what used to be thought of as fairly pedestrian occurrences.

samatman 4y ago

The imputation of drama to "polar vortex" is entirely in how you see it. "Polar" refers to the poles, in this case the North geometric pole, and "vortex" is an exact description of what wind is doing in a polar vortex. Storms have been given names since the early 19th century, so your "used to be" here is well beyond the threshold of living memory.

tomohawk 4y ago
Tropical cyclones have been given names for a long time, but that's not what I was referring to. Now-a-days snowstorms and other run-of-the mill phenomena are given names. That's pretty recent. And is it really "entirely" in how I see it? I'm referring to the breathless intonation of modern weather talking heads as they discuss normal weather phenomena as a "polar vortex" (in scare quotes). They used to just say it was going to snow more or be colder. The use of "polar vortex" in that context definitely amps up the drama.
- abracadaniel 4y ago
  Because polar vortex storms aren’t a very common phenomenon. Aside from the past couple of years, the previous occurrences seem to be 2014-2015, 2013-2014, and then 1985 prior to that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex So, we have a very rare, very extreme weather phenomenon that’s hit multiple in the last 10 years after decades of static behavior. The wiki on the Polar Vortex even attributes the 2013 storm with popularizing the term due to the heavy reporting.
  - tjr225 4y ago
    And yet if you talk to any older person they’ll tell you winter used to be worse/more snow/etc, so perhaps the heavy reporting is the real culprit.
    - Izkata 4y ago
      This isn't a general-winter-weather thing like that. The polar vortex is a very particular phenomena that only lasts 1-3 days* and doesn't necessarily come with snow. Its signature is just extreme cold, on the order of -40 degrees or lower, even in areas that only very rarely go below -5 F (-20 C). * technically it's always there around the north pole, but we only talk about it when it dips down into populated areas.
rufus_foreman 4y ago
>> Storms have been given names since the early 19th century, so your "used to be" here is well beyond the threshold of living memory My interpretation of the parent post is that it refers to the naming of every typical winter storm during a season, which was begun by the Weather Channel in 2012. I do in fact remember the debate at the time over that practice. Wikipedia gives only two examples of winter storm names predating 1900, "The Great Snow of 1717" and "The Schoolhouse Blizzard" or "Children's Blizzard" of 1888. That seems to be a different practice than winter storms Ajax, Bella, Cara, Delphi, Echo and Ferus of the 2021-2022 season.
mistrial9 4y ago
California has implemented a plan to name heat-waves. After the last few years on the Western side of North America, maybe not a bad thing.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

btilly 4y ago

Unless you are over 70, named storms and the polar vortex have been a feature of meteorological reporting since before you were born. Your impression that this a change is due to your ignorance.

tomohawk 4y ago
Thanks for keeping it classy on HN! I'm not over 70, but you never used to hear "polar vortex" in popular weather forecasting broadcasts. I'm not a meteorologist, so I can't comment on its use by pros. And you never used to hear about named storms unless they were tropical cyclones.
- LocalPCGuy 4y ago
  The media (and weather broadcasts) latched onto the term in the 2013/2014 winter, and has been using it ever since. And the media is prone to over-exaggeration, we know that, no argument. There have even been scientific papers about whether the use of the term is problematic and how to best describe it to non-experts. Even using the word ignorant, as the person you replied to above did, is not a slight IMO (at least, I don't see it that way, I see it, in the context used, as a descriptive term for "the state of not knowing"). The point being, the weather phenomena is not new, nor is using polar vortex to describe it. And just because you hear about something in the media for the first time and it seems exaggerated, that does not necessarily invalidate it or somehow make it a "pedestrian event" being over-hyped. It could be, but in this specific case, it definitely does not. And those words, as explained elsewhere, are the correct words to use from a descriptive point of view. > The earliest scientific papers describing the broad-scale tropospheric or stratospheric flow as a “circumpolar vortex” or “polar vortex” are from the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Although a much earlier usage appears on pg 430 of Littell’s Living Age Map, 12 November 1853.)
- zamalek 4y ago
  > you never used to hear "polar vortex" Because it was behaving in a manner consistent with at least a few thousand years. > And you never used to hear about named storms unless they were tropical cyclones. Which is no different to today?