2023-09-14 20:03:00
A few months ago, Belgian meteorologist Luc Trullemans explained the phenomenon to SudInfo. “At 20 kilometers altitude, around the North Pole, it is obviously very cold. This pocket flies over the area from east to west. We speak of a polar vortex when the cold part of the core heats up. Cold winds in the stratosphere (the area of the atmosphere regarding twenty kilometers above the earth) descend because of this warming in our atmospheric layer. The winds become disorganized and undulate, causing a cold snap,” he says.
Consequences for Belgium?
To know if this phenomenon will affect Belgium, it will depend on the location of the phenomenon. “If it is over Scandinavia, cold, dry continental air will move in from the east, causing temperatures to drop. If it is nevertheless above Greenland, it is not the depression zones bringing with them a gentle maritime air mass that will reach us, but the depression zones coming from the polar regions. Disturbed polar air will then descend on our regions, which will be covered in a white coat,” explains Samuel Helsen. However, the promise of a white winter is not certain, explains the climatologist. “If the weakening of the vortex primarily affects atmospheric circulation over Canada or the United States, people in these regions will likely experience a cold, white winter. In contrast, our winter might be relatively mild and rainy, our regions then being under the influence of an oceanic air current.”
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