Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Winter temperatures are crushing at the moment.  One meteorologist explained it as "A polar vortex." International Falls, Minnesota, hit 31 below zero.  Fargo, North Dakota, plummeted to 25 below.  Even Chicago was down to 15 below zero.

The Weather Channel had a headline on its homepage, "Coldest Air in 20 Years Ahead."  This transcends just merely being brutally cold.  The story goes on to say that a low pressure system which is creating blizzard conditions "will open the door to another bitter cold invasion from Canada." 

On Sunday up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Packers and San Francisco 49ers will be playing their NFL Wildcard Playoff Game in temperatures of minus-4 degrees.  (Just a guess here, but I would presume in arctic conditions like this, players from northern Wisconsin have an advantage over a team from California.  That said, when it's 4 below zero, I'm not sure if the word "advantage" is precisely proper.  Besides, can you imagine when you were a kid and if it was 4-below, telling your mother that you were going outside to play?  You'd be grounded before your next breath would freeze.)

As the Weather Channel notes, at these temperatures, "exposed skin can get frostbitten in minutes and hypothermia can quickly set in because wind chills could hit 50, 60 or even 70 below zero."  Subzero lows may occur as far south as Nebraska, parts of Iowa, and northwest Illinois.

But this bitter weather isn't limited to the North.  Subzero temperatures might reach as far south as the Ozarks and the Ohio Valley,  The Weather Channel reports that record lows might hit two dozen cities, including all the way down to Texas.

And now, as tradition goes, this is where the Far Right start laughing at "Global Warming."  Ha, ha, ha, they chortle, if it's so brutally cold, how can there possibly be "Global Warming."Never mind, of course, that the correct phrase is Climate Change. 

And if one doesn't think that the coldest weather in 20 years isn't yet one more piece in the picture of Climate Change, you're not trying hard enough.But then, even if a person wants to incorrectly use the phrase, "Global Warming," even that explains in part what's going on.  In the most simplistic terms --

When the temperature rises, the polar ice cap melts, this creates moisture which rises.  Hitting the colder upper atmosphere, this freezes the moisture and turn it into snow which blankets the earth.

This crushing cold snap is something slightly different.  It's more related to cold air that's built up at the North Pole.

Global Warming, hahaha.  Ah, the whimsy of language.  Just think, with one letter switched -- in fact, merely a swiggle on one letter removed -- it's telling you specifically what it's all about.

Global Warning.