Winter isn't cancelled just yet: Polar vortex expected to hit Canada next week

Don’t put away your winter boots and coats just yet, because a polar vortex is expected to hit Canada starting next week.

According to a report from The Weather Network, colder-than-normal temperatures are building over the Arctic and will carry south into the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Next week, that air is expected to travel across Western and Central Canada and into the US.

Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), provided some more insight into what a polar vortex is and how it will impact the country next week.

“The polar vortex is something that’s often in place for us in Canada,” Proctor told Daily Hive.

Oftentimes, the polar vortex forms in the eastern-central part of the country — near Hudson Bay — as this is where low-pressure centres go to “decay.”

The polar vortex builds in that area and then often carries around parts of the Eastern Arctic in Canada through much of the winter.

“We’re definitely seeing [the polar vortex] strengthen at this point in time,” he explained.

Proctor noted that the cold air is currently pushing further south into the northern prairies and will continue to travel further southward into western Canada next week.

Will the polar vortex take over the rest of winter?

While it’s clear that the cold is on its way, will the frigid conditions continue for the remainder of the winter season?

Proctor said that to answer that question, we need to understand a few basics about the atmosphere and its behaviour.

“What often happens in the atmosphere is we see a series of ridges and troughs meandering about… it behaves much like a fluid,” he explained.

He noted that “streams” within the atmosphere form and circulate, creating differing weather patterns.

A “high amplitude ridge” has caused the El Niño phenomena in the North Pacific, which has impacted Western Canada.

“What’s happening now is that ridge is beginning to weaken temporarily, that’s allowing all that cold air that’s been dammed up in the Arctic to slide southwards.”

Proctor noted that despite next week’s colder conditions, El Niño will be the dominant system experienced in Western Canada, as the milder and rainy conditions will eventually return. The same can’t be said for Eastern Canada, he added.

“Eastern Canada, under El Niño circumstances can tend to be a bit more stormy and unpredictable,”  he said.

“It’s not just a simple system moving through, but it’s the impacts of these various circulations on various scales in the atmosphere, which end up driving the weather that we experience.”