If I say that we shouldn’t ignore the terms and conditions, you might think of something on your computer or your phone. You know, when you sign up for an app or a service or game of some sort and it comes with about ten pages of fine print that none of us ever pay attention to. We just click “agree” and move on, not realizing we have signed away all our rights in the process. But that’s not the terms and conditions I am referring to.
In this case, I mean the terms used to describe the weather conditions. For some reasons, there seem to be a whole lot of terms that are used to describe those conditions that I have never paid much attention to.
A few years ago, we were introduced to the term “polar vortex”. It was used to describe a particularly nasty stretch of cold weather, where the cold flow of arctic air was trapped in our area, treating us a week or two of not wanting to be anywhere near the outside.
The term was very descriptive and certainly gave us a clear mental picture of what the weather was going to be like. Like many, I thought it was something new that had come up, just to describe this chilly atmospheric condition. Not so much. It was a term that had been around since the 1850s. It was probably tossed around amoung groups of meteorologists. But it was not something that was used with the general public.
Lately, we have treated to the term “atmospheric river”. Again, very descriptive. There’s not a lot of doubt what they are talking about. We’re going to get wet. Possibly very wet.
This term, while not as old as polar vortex, is also not something new. It’s only been around since the 1990s and is used to describe a very specific band of moisture. There are other terms that refer to a similar type of atmospheric disturbance. Tropical plume, tropical connection, moisture plume, water vapor surge or even cloud band can all be used. While I like the word “tropical” being used around here, they aren’t quite as descriptive as atmospheric river. Use the words “tropical connection” and I might think of laying on a beach with a cold drink with a little umbrella in it. But change that to atmospheric river and my immediate reaction will likely be along the lines of , “we’re going to need a bigger umbrella.”
Apparently, these are not rare occurrences. There are usually two or three of them around at any given time. Thankfully, they just don’t always land on top of us.
The fact that these terms seem fairly new to us, but yet have been around for quite a while is probably a good thing. It would have been nice to continue to go through life never having learned them. But how many more are there?
It makes me think of people studying meteorology in a place similar to Hogwarts, studying age old books of weather, learning arcane terms that can be trotted out with a wave of the magic wand across a weather map.
In this case, as I say, they are pretty good terms at letting us get a picture of what is going on with the weather. Although I’m really not sure I want to learn any more or them.
