A couple days ago I had a light op-ed piece on “polar vortex backlash” (as far as I know, not the name of a band, yet) in salon.com. Here is the start of it:

Here in the U.S., the polar vortex is back, repeating its attack from last year. Like last year’s event, this one is extreme; it is bringing unusually cold temperatures and deluges of autumn snow. And it just turned serious, with at least 10 people killed by back-to-back city-burying blizzards in Buffalo. The forecast now threatens flooding as temperatures rise and rain falls on snow.

Here, however, is where some expert observers will beg caution: In most of the rest of the country, it’s just cold. And, in the bigger picture, the polar vortex is repeating what it has done every year since long before there were human beings on the planet. There has always been cold air over the pole in winter, and it has always moved around and sometimes moved over us.

Some weather stories take the normal behavior of the atmosphere and turn it into hype. That bothers many professional meteorologists in academia and the media. But I’m making my peace with it.

The full piece is here.