This week, a sizable portion of the U.S. Midwest and East experienced extreme and even life threatening cold weather this week. Not only did it make life uncomfortable for those who are accustomed to winter storms and often pride themselves on their ability to withstand the cold temperatures that are associated with Canada and the northernmost of U.S.  states, but the Polar Vortex causing this weather also cause severe disruptions to transportation.

Colder Than Mars
Temperatures in the American state of Minnesota reached lows equalling or exceeding -27°F, or -32.78°C. Such low temperatures recorded in Minnesota and other places in the United States and Canada revealed that some locations experienced temperatures creating environments colder than the polar ice caps of Mars. If this isn’t surprising enough, keep in mind that Mars is an average of 230 million kilometers from the sun while the earth is merely 149.6 million kilometers from the sun on average.

Shifted Polar Vortex
The noun certainly brings an ominous image of a swirling mass of cold air. In a sense, that is what it is but probably without the ominous swirling clouds and other images that may come to mind. Typically jets of air position the vortex over the North Pole where temperatures can reach a beyond freezing point of about -61.11°C (-78°F). Over the past week, this same vortex shifted downwards and slipped over southern Canada and the northern United States and caused conditions of intense cold and freezing.

Transportation Chaos
The weather brought on by this split of intensely cold air from the Polar Vortex caused transportation snarls of every type. Airport is in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and Saint Louis all faced major delays and flight cancellations.

The snowfall that came with the burst of cold air into the United States and Canada also led to some of the most hazardous road conditions that many areas have seen in many years. Even cities and states that are well practiced in sever winter weather were faced with unexpected challenges.

Major logistics providers were forced to halt operations in some areas and develop contingency plans for other hard hit but navigable areas for deliveries. For people and businesses in the southern and western US, the changes to the weather were felt, but not to the extremes of those located in the midwest or in the more northern states of the USA.

Easing

Luckily for transportation providers and those located in Canada and the United States, the Polar Vortex that has been causing such chaos is now moving on its way out and conditions are expected to return to normal with the coming January thaw. This is good news for logistics providers, as business should be returning back to normal and the extreme weather will have ceased.