polar vortex

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polar vortex

n
(General Physics) meteorol a large mass of rotating air located in the upper-middle atmospheric layers over either of the earth's poles, typically behind a polar front
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
References in periodicals archive
After last winter's brutal "Polar Vortex," one would assume that this winter would be predictably milder.
UTV, 8pm It's a bleak midwinter at Heathrow, as staff at the airport deal with the aftermath of a polar vortex, a large pocket of very cold air delivering sub-zero temperatures for days on end.
As I write this message at the very end of January when we here in Oberlin are huddled near space heaters trying to ameliorate the effects of the polar vortex, it is difficult to think you will be reading this in June.
The recent polar vortex had much of the Midwest piling on layers in an effort to ward off the dangers of hypothermia--yet in just a few months, people will be desperately shedding them to escape heat exhaustion.
Amid the meltdown of western railroads, the analyst says Union Pacific "wins the award for the world's unluckiest", noting that in spite of reeling from the Oregon tunnel collapse last May, the more recent polar vortex and Nebraska flooding delivered a "one-two punch" to the company.
The recent cold snap that sent brutal Arctic temperatures across the American Midwest and Northeast was brought to us by an atmospheric condition known as the polar vortex, a cyclonic flow in Earth's troposphere and stratosphere, which normally hovers over the Arctic and northern reaches of Canada and Asia.
THIS cat definitely used one of her nine lives when she survived being frozen in 16 inches of snow during the polar vortex.
class="MsoNormalFrom Minnesota to New York, the polar vortex again prompted school closures, mail service interruptions and thousands of flight cancellations, many of them in and out of Chicago.
CHICAGOANS have settled into polar vortex survival mode, nestling under blankets to work on laptops at home or layering socks with Saran Wrap if venturing out.
While in Australia horses are dying en masse in the Outback due to an extreme heat wave, a polar vortex near the North Pole is spreading Arctic temperature across North America.
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