Extreme cold weather in North America and blistering heat waves in South America have
been making headlines over the last few days with record breaking conditions on either
end of the temperature scale.
Kim Ji-yeon takes a look at the extreme weather conditions around the globe.
Some cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis and Chicago experienced sensory temperatures that
dipped to below minus-50 degrees.
Around 14 counties in the state of New York declared a state of emergency due to the frigid
conditions, closing schools and airports.
More than 5-hundred passengers taking regular train services in Chicago were left stranded
in their compartments for 14 hours when the trains they were traveling in got stuck in
ice and snow.
Experts attribute the rush of cold air due to something called a distorted polar vortex...
which is a circulation of strong, upper-level winds that normally surround the northern
pole in a counter-clockwise direction.
Normally a polar low-pressure system keeps the bitter cold air locked in the Arctic regions
of the Northern Hemisphere,... but this can become distorted and dip further south ... which
is what much of the United States is experiencing right now.
But it's a different story on the southern part of the hemisphere...where high pressure
is bringing in the heat from the equator, which is leading to extremely hot weather
conditions.
In the northern part of Argentina, the mercury level shot up to 50 degrees, the highest in
the region in a century.
At least 10 people have died due to the extreme heat wave there.
Some researchers say the Arctic airmass that the U.S. is experiencing now could be related
to global warming because it coincides with unusually high temperatures in other regions
that are usually cold at this time of the year.
"Because we've got this very westerly jet stream blowing across the UK, it's tending
to draw a lot of warm air up from the Mediterranean and also from further afield such as the tropical
Atlantic, so lots of warm air moving up across Spain into Italy and parts of southeastern
Europe."
The U.S. National Weather Service says it expects this Arctic airmass to continue until
Friday.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.