When the National Weather Service issued its long-range forecast for this winter last fall, it was a good news/bad news scenario. They were predicting warmer-than-normal temperatures for our region, which was the good news (after all, who likes cold weather?), but the bad news meant that this was further evidence of climate change and global warming. Our recent winters in Eastern Mass. had been the warmest on record and that trend seemed poised to continue.
However, Ol’ Man Winter had other ideas. Instead of spinning his polar vortex in a nice tight loop around the North Pole (which keeps the cold air contained around the pole), he’s been playing a sort of yo-yo effect with the vortex, allowing it to dip south and bring that frigid air to us. December was the coldest December in our region in 25 years.
The chronic instability and disruption of the polar vortex has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Climatologists tell us that the colder air that we experience when the vortex dips south ironically is a sign of overall global warming. The Arctic region has been among the fastest-warming places on the planet (four times faster than the rest of the world, which is why the polar bears don’t have enough sea ice for hunting seals in the summer months).
The warming of the Arctic, according to these scientists, is causing a weakening of the vortex and ultimately sending cold air much further south than usual, resulting in the record cold waves of the sort that the weatherman says is coming our way next week.
For those of us who have oil heat, prices thankfully are the lowest they’ve been in a few years. Users of natural gas have not been so lucky, with prices much higher than in the recent past. Many low-income families are having trouble paying their heating bills, especially with the elimination of the federal energy assistance program.
So yes, it would be nice if this winter were warmer. But as cold as the weather has been, our wintry conditions could be a lot worse (and yes, we’re thinking of the Snowmageddon we experienced 11 years ago!).
On the bright side, we’ve already passed the halfway point of meteorological winter (the three months of December, January, and February) and the sun has been setting later and later every day (sunset is now 30 minutes later than it was on December 1), noticeably lengthening our days amidst the cold.
Hopefully, the worst of the winter of 2026 will be behind us after next week — and we’ll be on a path to glide through the month of February en route to warmer days ahead.