Visualizing the Latest Arctic Blast

Screenshot from an animation depicting the blast of Arctic air rushing south across much of the U.S. (Images: earth.nullschool.net. Animation: Tom Yulsman) By now you've probably heard enough about the polar vortex to make your head, well, spin. So as the Southeastern United States is being pummeled by a rare winter storm, I thought I'd try to come up with a visualization of the current Arctic blast that's a bit different from what you may have seen already. Click on the image above to watch what I've put together. It's an animation based on visualizations from earth.nullschool.net depicting both the wind field and temperatures over the United States from early in the morning this past Sunday (Jan. 26) through this morning. The moving lines correspond to the winds, and the colors to temperature (with blues, greens, and purples indicating areas that are colder). I am particularly struck by the pattern of winds at about six seconds into the animation. The cold air rushing from northwest to southeast really does look like a blast from a shotgun. To make the animation I took individual screenshots of the wind field and temperature in three hour increments — 18 separate screenshots in all. Then I compiled them into a GIF animation, which I uploaded as a movie to Youtube. (I should also tip my hat to Andrew Freedman, whose post at Climate Central got me going on this idea.)