One aspect of emerging media and is the rapid dispersal of terms that come up in the news. Some things have always been there, and just get out of hand when they enter the news cycle. Things like “bomb cyclone” seem absurd to the point of frivolity if you don’t know the definition. I’ve gotten into debates on Twitter about Particularly Dangerous Situations being assigned to some weather watches, because the other Twitter user thought meteorologists were being overdramatic in their terminology. It’s a lesson in never using Social Media.

One term that really exploded in the last half decade was “Polar Vortex” which emerged in the midst of a persistent cold snap that was particularly cruel to the Eastern Seaboard. Since the East Coast is where most media, and really most of the people in the country reside, the term was foisted upon the country. There were some amusing consequences.

But mostly, it just annoyed meteorologists, because the colloquial definition of the polar vortex is not correct. As the media may have led some to believe, the polar vortex is not just a surge of cold air that dive bombs the mid latitudes out of the Arctic.

A vortex is something that rotates, The Polar Vortex, then, is the Arctic jet that spins around the North Pole. Ergo when it is strong, as is the case with all jet streams and streaks, it represents a sharp temperature contrast on other side of the streak. While it will certainly be cold north of, or within the vortex, it’s strength suggests that it will actually be fairly warm south of it.

Weaker flow can lead to some ripples in the jet, which can mean lobes of cold air pressing further south, particularly later in the year when high latitudes start to get colder on their own. Right now, though, it looks like we have a stout Polar Vortex to guide us into winter, and that is a good thing.

2020 has now surpassed 2005 as the most active tropical season in the North Atlantic in recorded history. We’ve exceeded the total of named storms by two, dipping further into the Greek alphabet than ever before. The long lived Eta has made the most of it’s first appearance in our meteorological lexicon, while Theta is spiraling out by the Azores, and Iota is preparing to landfall in Central America, near where Eta initially exploded on the scene. Similarly, Iota is expected to become a hurricane, with the present forecast asserting that Iota will be a major hurricane upon besetting the Nicaragua/Honduras border with more destruction.

Fortunately, despite all the action this year, we haven’t matched the pace of hurricanes or major hurricanes of 2005, which still holds the record in both categories. A bit of good news is that, at least for the next couple of weeks, it doesn’t look like Iota has a follow up on the immediate horizon, which will make it difficult to reach the hurricane or major hurricane numbers of 15 years ago.

Of course, I say that now, but it should be noted that the Tropical Storm Zeta of 2005, the last storm of that busy year was also the first storm of 2006. In a year like this, there is plenty of time for more new ground to be covered.

Today was a particularly active weather day, with low pressure in the Upper Midwest extending a cold front through the Great Lakes and on towards the Mississippi. The front itself has been the origin of severe weather from the Quad Cities south through Missouri and eventually across Big Muddy and through Illinois.

More indicative of what’s coming is the snow that fell in the Upper Midwest. 2-5″ fell in Minnesota as precipitation wrapped into the cold air diving into the country behind this system, merely a couple of hundred miles away from tornado warnings in northern Illinois.

More tangibly, I think these two images spell out the change coming for the end of the week. First, the radar imagery.

And now, take a look at tonight’s lows. There should be some significantly colder air northwest of those bands of thunderstorms.

And there is that sharp drop I promised. High pressure will move in at the surface over the Plains, and prevent much of a warm up for a couple of days. Eta will slow the cold front so all those places that will get copious rain from the tropics will remain warm few days longer.

If you didn’t believe it yet, winter looks like it is here, and will hang on.

We are only a week into November, which means that we are awarding the forecaster of the month sooner than usual lately, and also, with as long as this week took, it’s clear time has no meaning anymore. The forecasting was pretty ok this month, though it leaned heavily on model guidance because of a west coast bias. It was Accuweather who did the best work for the month.

Hurricane Eta plowed into Central America after exploding from a depression to a Category 5 storm in an alarmingly short time frame. It hit Guatemala, Honduras and particularly Nicaragua with vicious winds, but the particularly brutal part of the storm were torrential rains that killed hundreds thanks to flash floods and mudslides in mountainous terrain. The topography of Central America makes the region a death trap during strong tropical storms.

Now, Eta, instead of expiring in the mountains, turned back to the east and is forecast to wind through the Caribbean, hitting a lot of highlights along the way. Part of the reason it is expected to be able to continue on this path, despite a pending bisection of Cuba tonight, and a graze of the Florida Keys in the early part of the week, is how good it continues to look on satellite.

It’s generated quite a bit of convection to it’s north, and because it isn’t as strong as it looked, it will probably continue to feature broad swaths of directionless convection over places like south Florida as it wiggles along the Gulf Coast.

It’s not going to be a major storm in Florida, but it will last a while and be quite a soaker.