If you feel like the weather has been getting a lot weirder and wilder lately, you’re not alone. While it’s easy to blame climate change, we need to dive deeper. There has been a recent increase in polar vortex events bringing arctic air far enough south to cause snow in places like Texas, extreme heat waves like in the Pacific Northwest, and extreme rain like we saw after Hurricane Ida. Even fires in Siberia and drought hint at a new dust bowl. NOAA’s 2020 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster report showed a notable uptick in extremes. And 2021 was no exception, with 10.6% of all weather stations reporting record temperatures. And with the continued emission of carbon into the atmosphere, this should come as no real surprise.

But some new scientific research shows that there is a surprising thread that connects nearly all of these weather events. Tune in to learn why it feels like our weather is spiraling out of control and what we might have in store.

Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

Greenland photo/video credit: Dr. Sarah Das, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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Why do we see so much extreme winter weather even as the climate warms? Veteran climate scientist Judah Cohen describes one theory explaining the connection between changes in the jetstream, polar vortex events, and climate change. These bring blizzards, cold temperatures, and record-breaking snowfall to places that are expected to be warming. Examples are the Texas deep freeze in 2021 and in 2022, the extreme snow in Virginia which stranded drivers on I95 for over 24 hours. Watch to find out how global warming could be the cause of major weather shifts that actually increase snowfall events.

In 2015, Boston was brought to its knees by the worst winter on record, receiving an unprecedented 110 inches of snow. And over the last decade, the American Northeast has seen more than a 200% increase in the frequency of large, disruptive snowstorms. This trend surprised nearly everybody, including many of the top experts, as they had been expecting a warming planet to translate into milder winters. But in many locations, we have seen just the opposite. So what’s going on here?

We traveled to Boston to search for answers about these surprising effects of climate change and their connection to the jet stream, the polar vortex, and a phenomenon known as “arctic amplification.” We also discuss some of the most common risks like hypothermia, frostbite, heart attacks, and traffic accidents that make winter weather, far and away, the deadliest natural hazard of them all.

Weathered is a show hosted by meteorologist Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

Subscribe to PBS Terra so you never miss an episode! https://bit.ly/3mOfd77

And keep up with Weathered and PBS Terra on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PBSDigitalStudios
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbsds
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pbsds

Thank you to Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies for supporting PBS.

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* http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-26/heat-waves-rains-probably-linked-to-warming-scientists-say.html

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