It’s Wild

Two primary factors control the Earth’s weather: the flow of warm air from the equator toward the poles, and the rotation of the Earth. In this hemisphere the northward stream of the atmosphere is bent by the rotation so that the basic weather patterns run from west to east.

Beyond that, the causes of meteorologic events become terribly complex and not always predictable or fully understood. So it is with the weather pattern born in the Arctic regions of Scandinavia sometime in December that ultimately put the chill on President Reagan’s inauguration and will raise the price of Florida orange juice this year.

In the simplest of terms, an unusual conjunction of high- and low-pressure systems over Europe interrupted the normal west-to-east storm pattern and set up a track down which frigid Siberian air rushed--plunging farther south than normal. The whole system then gradually moved westward from Europe across the Atlantic and the North American continent. By Thursday it had mostly dissipated in the North Pacific, according to meteorologist Jerome Namias of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla.

The phenomenon is not unique. It occurs a couple of times a year, Namias said, although temperatures are not usually so extreme. Still, to a person like Namias who has seen about everything that the weather can deliver, “It was a very fascinating thing.” In retrospect, Namias said, there were hints that such a condition might occur. These included a late, warm fall in Europe and the development of an intense high-pressure system over Scandinavia.

A surprising aspect of the system was the extent and intensity of the cold, which shattered records throughout this country’s East and South. Thus continues a period of six or seven years during which regions of the Earth have experienced both extreme heat and extreme cold. Fred Ostby, director of the National Severe Storm Center, commented this past week, “I’m not sure what it all means. It’s wild.”

More study needs to be done, but Namias does not believe that it signals a basic change in global weather. He is confident that scientists ultimately will be able to determine precise reasons for such dramatic weather, and thus be able to forecast it more accurately. “I don’t think it’s what you’d call chaos,” he said. “It’s a highly organized thing.”

Until then, as the world turns, keep a weather eye to the east as well as the west.