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Climate and Agriculture in the Southeast

What are the “jet stream” and “polar vortex”?

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In the next week you will hear a lot about the terms “jet stream” and “polar vortex” if you have not already.  What are these phenomena?  A couple of easy to understand references you can use:

AthensGAWeather has a link to a website at the bottom of the page with a simple 2-minute explanation of the jet stream by Paul Knight, the State Climatologist of Pennsylvania here.

ABC News has a story about the polar vortex here.

The graphic below shows some misconceptions of the polar vortex from Dr. Marshall Shepherd, host of WxGeeks on The Weather Channel.

polar vortex slide

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