A sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) is an event where the polar vortex of westerly winds in the winter hemisphere abruptly (i.e. over the course of a few days) slows down or even reverses direction, accompanied by a rise of stratospheric temperature by several tens of kelvins. This is considered to be the most dramatic meteorological event in the stratosphere.
Read more about Sudden Stratospheric Warming: History, Classification and Description, Dynamics
Famous quotes containing the words sudden and/or warming:
“Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Under that wide hearth
a nest of rattlers,
they’ll knot a hundred together,
had wintered and were coming awake.
The warming rock
flushed them out early.”
—Robert Morgan (b. 1944)