What’s up with this wacky weather?!?

What's up with this wacky weather? That is indeed the question I'm getting most when I'm at the grocery store or the gym these days. It's actually quite comical some of the "complaints" I get about the weather. A couple of weeks ago when we were hitting record highs in the 80s, everyone complained asking "when is it going to get cold?" Then, last week, we had the coldest weather we had seen in 3 years and the same folks were complaining that it was "too cold." So why can't Mother Nature make up her mind?

The answer lies, or should I say flies, in the jet stream. The jet stream is a fast moving "river" of air about 5 miles up that divides very cold polar air from warm tropical air. In the summer, it stays pretty well parked to our north in Canada, but in the wintertime, that is hardly the case. In the winter, huge temperature differences between the warm tropics and the frigid arctic causes pressure differences which in turn push the jet stream much further south than in the summer. When the jet stream goes south, our temperatures go south!

Last week the jet stream dipped all the way to northern Florida, which is fairly rare. To make matters worse, we're in the midst of a La Nina pattern, meaning the waters in the eastern Atlantic are cooler than average. In the southeastern U.S., this usually means a warm and dry winter overall. However, even in the midst of a warm and dry winter, an occasional arctic blast or even a winter storm will slip through the cracks. The trouble is that 16 degree weather feels even worse when it follows 80 degree weather. And, according to NOAA, the La Nina state we are in is at its peak which likely means 70 degree weather will be much more common for the next few months than 16 degree weather. No complaints here.

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