Polar Vortex

Today I am grateful for the Polar Vortex.  How on earth did I make it to this ripe old age without the Polar Vortex and what in the world is it?  Cold weather?  Yup.  Really cold weather?  Yup, again.  Thanks for telling me.  I didn’t know that when I stepped onto the icy tundra and the wind sucked my sunny disposition right out of me!

When I lived in Sheboygan, Wisconsin I can vividly remember the temperature on top of the Security Bank, the tallest (six stories) building in town, read – 40.  That’s a minus.  Yes, minus forty degrees. It was only one time, but it was true. No one on any TV or radio station mentioned anything about a Polar Vortex.  Where did the term come from?  Who made this up?  Am I the only unenlightened person out here? 

I know, I know, I saw the explanation on TV, too in full living color, with a size-zero meteorologist resembling a thread-like river on the map behind her, as the screen morphed into a description.  “It’s an upper level low front that usually stays above Hudson Bay way up north of Canada but blah, blah, blah,” the thread-river said.  I don’t buy it.  Why did we not hear about it until now?  They made it up.

I think Polar Vortex is right up there with Chill Factor, another little phrase we never heard of as kids.  Before we headed out to walk to school, 42 miles in the snow, uphill both ways, our mom would look out the window.  If it was snowing, she’d say, “Better wear a hat and mittens today and boots, too.”  If we complained that we didn’t want to, she’d say, “Go ahead, freeze then.  I’m not going to argue with you, but don’t come crying to me when your fingers and toes fall off from frostbite!”  Once we called her bluff and didn’t wear them. . .and we froze and she let us because that was a better teacher than logic.  The next time we wore them without being told. FYI-My sister and I still have all of our fingers and toes.

When it was really, really, really cold outside Jack Frost would ice over our storm windows with lacy feathers.  When the sun hit them they glistened and sparkled like Cinderella’s gown. . .but didn’t melt.  That’s cold. Those days mom would make us wear a pair of slacks under our school dresses, along with the rest.  Yeah, we wore dresses to school.  With ugly shoes and ankle socks.  With pants under a dress, and our rubber boots that went OVER our shoes and zipped up around our pants, with the furry cuff clutching at our calves, we thought we looked stupid.  We were right. Every other girl’s mom made them wear pants, too, so we all looked stupid, which was easier to bear.  In the Cloak Room we’d shed everything like snake skins.  And we didn’t freeze to death, which is good.  Our definition of a Polar Vortex would have been when our own breath and snot would freeze to the outsides of the scarves we had tied around our faces.  That’s cold, but I bet it never makes “. . .the big story”.

I don’t think winter felt as cold before the Polar Vortex and Chill Factors.  The definitions tell me how much I’m supposed to shiver and how long it will take for my fingers and toes to fall off. I’m grateful the meteorologists have given official names to beyond meat-locker-cold temperatures.  How did we ever get by this long without them?