Dangerous windchills are expected in Denver. Find out where this frigid air headed to Colorado is coming from.
Cold air originating from the Arctic Ocean will be dislodged and sent to the continental United States this weekend. As a result, windchills here in Denver will likely bottom out around 30 degrees below 0, and much of the rest of Colorado will experience the same conditions.
But where exactly is this air coming from, and how did it arrive?
For starters, the Arctic polar vortex is a band of strong westerly winds that forms in the stratosphere between about 10 and 30 miles above the North Pole every winter. The winds enclose a large pool of extremely cold air, according to the NOAA.
Here is a much simpler way to visualize the Arctic polar vortex:
In a simple scenario, with little weather occurring across the United States, the cold arctic air remains trapped to our north. However, as we begin to introduce strong weather systems, the jet stream confining the cold air becomes wavy and slips to the south. That is exactly what will happen this weekend:
The clockwise flow around high pressure in the Gulf of Alaska combined with the counterclockwise flow around low pressure near the Hudson Bay will work together to pull a lobe of frigid air off the polar vortex.
Now that the cold air has been displaced it will dip south across the United States bringing life-threatening wind chills and storm chances as the weekend approaches.
