After giving us an exceedingly cold and snowy winter, the Weather Gods are blessing Chicago and other parts of the Midwest/Northeast with unseasonably cool weather later this week. Think mild and pleasant mid-September temperatures, rather than hot and humid mid-July ones.
As Eric Holthaus writes for Slate:
As for next week’s weather, polar air will again be spilling southward from the Arctic Ocean. That’ll be good enough to convert what’s typically Chicago’s hottest week of the year to an unseasonably pleasant early Autumn-style respite that will have folks begging for more. Chicago’s forecast high of 72 degrees Fahrenheit next Wednesday is historically much more likely to happen on September 16th than July 16th.
Cooler than normal weather is expected across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country as well, with mild temperatures from Boston to New York City to Washington, though not nearly as dramatic as in the Midwest. All in all, you really can’t ask for much better weather than what’s on offer next week.
As for the Polar Vortex of Winter 2014, Holthaus also proclaims it largely was largely a myth, with below-average freezing temperatures only existing on the East Coast and in the Midwest, as opposed to everywhere else in the world:
The polar vortex isn’t a new phenomenon, nor was it behind every cold snap of the past six months. According to NOAA, while last winter was below average (by one degree Fahrenheit), winters are warming for virtually every corner of the continental United States (save one corner of southwest Louisiana).
This winter was an aberration, not the rule—a dip in the long-term trend of global warming. Further proof: the first five months of 2014 were collectively the fifth warmest of such period globally since records began. This winter was a temporary cold blip in a small corner of the Earth. We just happen to live there.
I myself don’t recall this past winter as being that different from the winters I experienced growing up in Massachusetts. It is nice to blame the crappy weather on some boogeyman, though, instead of suffering in silence, or facing up to how we’ve all contributed to climate change. Er—sorry if that was a downer; stay cool everyone!
Image via AP.