• Published:Feb. 06, 2023, 1:43 p.m.

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https://www.mlive.com/weather/2023/02/sudden-stratospheric-warming-becoming-likely-could-slip-us-back-into-winter.html

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• Mark Torregrossa | mtorregr@mlive.com

The top of our atmosphere is about to warm dramatically. The warm-up usually sends a cold blob of air eventually into the eastern half of the U.S. and the Great Lakes region.

The stratosphere is the second layer in our atmosphere and lies about 50,000 feet above Earth. Years ago, researchers discovered what we now call a “Sudden Stratospheric Warming” or SSW for short.

When the stratosphere warms dramatically over the course of a few days, it ripples an influence down into the weather atmosphere, called the troposphere. Think of it as someone jumping on an old school waterbed – the older beds without the baffles. You jumped on the bed and waves traveled across the bed.

https://39bbd79b396184f0d4f9755601ff92a3.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

The same thing occurs when the stratosphere warms quickly and expands…