An unusually extreme jet stream kink brings both cold waves and record highs

Warming in the arctic is causing a weakening of the jet stream that usually keeps in its cold air, allowing more instances of this kind of weather.

But isn't this worth it to not have to go to the extreme burden of turning off unneeded lights, turning off your car engine when you're parked, etc.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2595

By: Dr. Jeff Masters, 3:42 PM GMT on December 09, 2013

The calendar says we’re still a month and a half away from the peak of winter, but the winter weather gripping most of the U.S. is more typical of mid-January, as a significant outbreak of Arctic air continues to bring temperatures 10 - 30 degrees below normal to much of the nation. Following last Friday’s major winter storm that brought heavy snows and significant icing from Texas to Maine (“Cleon”), a new winter storm dubbed “Dion” followed a similar track on Sunday.

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As we’ve so many times over the past few years, the jet stream is stuck in an unusually wavy configuration that is bringing remarkable hot and cold weather extremes to the entire continent. A sharp trough of low pressure over the center of North America is allowing frigid Arctic air to barrel unusually far south, setting hundreds of daily records over the past few days.

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Unusually extreme ridges of high pressure set up over Alaska and the Southeast United States to compensate for the big dip in the jet stream over the center of North America. One ridge of high pressure pushed to the north of Alaska and over the Arctic Ocean, allowing warm Pacific air to bring rain and temperatures in the upper 30s to Alaska’s North Slope on Sunday—an unprecedented occurrence in December. Keep in mind that this is an area that has been in perpetual 24-hour darkness for several weeks. According to wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt, it appears that Sunday’s 39° at Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) is the warmest December temperature ever measured at any site on the Alaskan Arctic Ocean shoreline region. Weather records for Alaska’s North Slope go back as far as 1921 at Point Barrow. A very sharp ridge of high pressure also set up over the Southeast U.S.—Tallahasse, Florida hit 84° on Saturday, matching their highest temperature ever recorded in the month of December.

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