I wish the best luck to those who are going to set up this show in extremely cold, polar conditions.
Indeed, and this persistent bitter cold is occurring due to the recent destabilization of the polar vortex.
Polar vortex displacement usually occurs in response to a sudden stratospheric warming event, which fairly recently took place over the Gulf of Alaska. When this warming develops, it weakens the structural integrity of the polar vortex and causes it to become unstable. As the vortex destabilizes, it has the freedom to drift farther South than usual, causing violently cold temperatures to occur at the mid-latitudes. When the vortex weakens, it also eventually divides into two (sometimes more) separate vortices. One of these vortices has moved over the Eastern portion of the North American continent, while the other moved towards Siberia.
This phenomenon happens almost every late-Fall and Winter at some point, but what is more unusual about this current event is how long it will last (virtually 9 to 10 days in total). In most cases, the vortex lingers for usually no more than 4 to 6 days before retreating. The last unusually persistent polar vortex displacement was in January 1981.
Largely because of this, this will also be our coldest December in 17 years, despite the mild conditions featured by December 1st to December 10th.
Trav.
