The “Beast from the East” 2 : Post Christmas Boogaloo
BREAKING NEWS: Christmas aint over yet!
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Winter is coming. Now you may ask, “what are you on about? the nights are longer, the trees are deader, everyone is constantly complaining about the cold and how tired they are! How is this not Winter?” And to that I say…well, technically you’re right. But! Sure, the winter solstice has come and gone (much to the detriment of everyone’s sleep patterns) but what is winter without snow? Much less romantic for one, but also much less christmassy. Simply think of how many Christmas songs involve some sort of snow, and yet how often are we subject to a snowless Christmas. So you can imagine my excitement when in bold, tabloid style fashion I read the words “BEAST FROM THE EAST SET TO RETURN AFTER SPEEDY AFAIR WITH BRITAIN LAST CHRISTMAS!” (I must state for the record this is not a direct quote, the school intranet wouldn’t allow me to access any tabloid so I just took a guess, please don’t sue me.)
(How can you hate snow with scenes like this, granted British snow is much less majestic and more choatic.)
We all remember the horrors, or delights for some, of last year’s Beast from the East. Where small children’s dreams of frolicking in the new, playing field snow were crushed by the inevitable onslaught of the great snowball wars. Where, While some feared for their lives as they cursed the lack of salt on the school site, others skidded along gleefully, like a kid who’s just bought a pair of Heelys, until their once unbreakable confidence was shattered in an instant as they tumbled and fell. But it wasn’t all bad, I mean think of how beautiful it all looked. You could look out at all the traffic chaos…. And injuries…. Okay so maybe I’m a little too optimistic but I still thought it was a pretty wonderful time, truly encapturing that romanticised vision of Christmas. Until it all turned to slush 3 days later.
(The wonders of British snow in action.)
Now for the educational part ( so that I can pretend this isn’t just a rant about how I still haven’t gotten over Christmas yet ). So why would we be experienceing another weather phenomenon like this, only one year after the last one? Is it because of Global warming? Santa’s arctic winds? Punishment for our Christmas sins? Yes, yes, and maybe. Experts observed that over the Christmas period a weather phenomena known as Sudden Stratospheric Warming occurred in the northern hemisphere. It has been suggested that, as this is the same phenomena that led to last year’s beast, the same may occur this year. It has been predicted that the much colder weather caused by the SSW (for short) may last from mid January all the way to March. Many experts forecast that there may be two snow events occurring very imminently, one around the middle of January and one near the end.
(Truley a sight to cast fear into the hearts of many.)
Now you may be wondering how in the word a sudden warming can lead to a whole country becoming frozen over. Well lucky i’m here to inform you, using my very limited knowledge of meteorology, as I try and simplify the complex jargon (that I just about understand myself) into real human speech so that you don’t have to. SSW occurs when air Waves in the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere way above the clouds) are disrupted by disturbances in lower parts of the atmosphere, causing the usual westerly (coming from the west) winds in the stratosphere to reverse and become easterly winds. These easterly winds gradually descend from the stratosphere into our troposphere where our weather occurs. Our weather is usually caused by westerly winds from the Atlantic, these are usually quite mild. We also receive some westerly winds from the artic, leading to colder temperatures. The easterly winds that have descended from the stratosphere then begin to alter our wind patterns, which in turn causes a build up in pressure over the Atlantic ocean. This prevents those warmer Atlantic winds from reaching us, thus causing a drop in temperature. Pretty interesting stuff. (I hope)
(A diagram of the process of SSW, if you can understand any of this I will personally buy you some tuck or something, because I sure cant.)
However, there are some doubts. Experts have cited that the SSW spotted over Christmas does not definitely assure the chance of another Beast from the East(ly winds). I for one choose to hope and pray that they are wrong, and many may hate me for it. But what can I say, Christmas aint over until the fat lady sings “snow is falling all around me” in the middle of February. So bundle up and prepare yourselves, the great snow wars are coming.
-Oliver Hurley
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