The Arctic invasion has reached the shores of the Mediterranean Sea: in southern France, the Balearic Islands, and Algeria, temperatures will drop to 20°C below normal today. Levon Azizyan, director of the Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center, wrote about this on his Facebook page.
"The reason for this freezing weather is the weakening polar vortex (rings of powerful winds that rotate around the North Pole at an altitude of 20-50 km above the Earth's surface). While the strong polar vortex keeps the cold at the poles, the weak one allows it to penetrate farther south.
This year, the first signs of the weakening polar vortex appeared unusually early, back in late October. "Experts believe this could lead to a colder winter in Europe," he wrote.
