The research is timely given the extreme
winter of 2017 - 2018, including record warm Arctic and low sea ice, record - breaking
polar vortex disruption, record - breaking cold and disruptive snowfalls in the United States and Europe, severe «bomb
cyclones» and costly nor'easter s, said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at AER and lead author of the study.
The «bomb
cyclone,» a
winter storm that descended on much of the eastern U.S. from December 27, 2017, to January 8, 2018, renewed the raging debate about resiliency and prompted flashbacks of the «
polar vortex,» a similar deep freeze that transpired in January 2014 and was compounded by the loss of 82 GW nationwide for various reasons.