“Polar vortex”, a word many of us have heard in the media this past week as temperatures dropped to near record lows for July.

So what is a polar vortex and why has it become such a buzz word?  We asked Iowa State Climatologist Harry Hillaker to share his expertise.

“Basically it’s just a low pressure system in the upper atmosphere.  It has been there forever but it’s just a case of where somebody picked up on that term last winter when we had that really long winter that didn’t seem like it wanted to end.  It became all of the sudden a very popular term, although most of the weather folks, meteorologists and climatologists, we don’t really use that term at all.  It’s one of those things that for whatever reason it just caught on and all of the sudden people have been talking about it” says Hillaker.

And while some of us enjoyed the nice little break from the summer heat, Hillaker says it won’t be sticking around.

“This week has been quite dry around the state but on the cool side so there hasn’t been a lot of impact with that dry air.  Next week might be quite on the dry side as well with the heat and humidity coming back but at the moment it doesn’t look like that pattern is going to persist maybe much more than a week.  Then the week after next we might be back into the more seasonal pattern with you know the occasional thunderstorm and temperatures closer to the usual level.”

Good news is, Hillaker says we’re in much better shape this summer than we were last year in terms of drought conditions after a wet spring.

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