Much of the U.S. has been experiencing dangerously cold temperatures and winter weather.

A large mass of Arctic air that moved south from Canada brought cold, wintry weather in mid-January 2024 that extended from the Pacific Northwest all the way to the East Coast. The cold reached as far south as Texas and Louisiana.

NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this view of snow and clouds over the Great Lakes on Jan. 16, 2024. The map shows near-surface air temperatures at 7 a.m. EST on Jan. 15 from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS), which uses data from NASA satellites and other sources. 

Another surge of frigid Arctic air is forecast to spread over the eastern half of the country on January 19 and 20, though it won’t be as extreme according to weather reports.

But wait… wasn’t 2023 the hottest year on record? If Earth is experiencing a long-term warming trend, why do these cold events occur? 

That’s a matter of weather versus climate. Weather typically refers to short-lived, while climate refers to longer-term averages and usually over many years or decades. And, while it’s cold in the U.S. currently, temperatures are still well above average elsewhere around the world.

Data from @nasa, @noaa, and other organizations show that Earth is warming due to human activity. That means that averaged over the globe and averaged over decades, Earth is getting hotter. But it doesn’t mean that every year – or every month, for that matter – from now on will be record hot. And places on Earth will still experience cold, wintry weather like this U.S. Arctic chill.

Image descriptions:

Satellite image of the Greater Lakes region on January 16, 2024. Michigan is in the center of the image and part of Illinois can be seen on the left and part of New York on the right. Almost all of the image is white with snow cover and streaks of puffy white clouds. Some of the water from three of the Great Lakes – Michigan, Huron and Erie – can be seen beneath the clouds.

Visualization of air temperature in Celsius in the contiguous U.S. at 2 meters. Much of the northern and central parts of the U.S. are dark blue, indicating temperatures are anywhere from -30 to 0 degrees Celsius. Below that is a band of white, indicating temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius. A strip of yellow and red along the southern part of the U.S. along the coast indicates that temperatures are anywhere from 0 to 30 degrees Celsius.

#Earth #NASA #Science #Weather #Climate #Snow #Winter