*Cold!*

High winds and a mass of supercold air has settled over the midsection of North America today and has brought closures to schools, government offices and businesses everywhere from Wyoming to Maine.

More often than not, these weather events are given a name, like an Alberta Clipper in the case of cold, dense air sweeping into the States from north of the border. Poor Alberta gets blamed, just as northern Albertans often call such things a Yukon Express.

Yeah... blame poor Yukon.

Fortunately, Yukoners usually just simply call them Arctic Blasts, sparing Alaska from taking the blame, although we Alaskans often name them after Siberia... and so it goes.

Today, the weather is causing school closures all over Alaska, too, but for a totally different reason: rain. In this case -- let's just call it a Pineapple Express rather than blame Hawaii -- strong Southerly winds and rain have swept across the northwest corner of North America after a couple of weeks of intense cold that penetrated the frost level deep into the ground.

That rain on that solidly-frozen ground has turned sidewalks and streets into ice rinks and has closed schools all over the north country. Blame it on the Chinook winds... another favorite expression for those of us west of the Rockies.

One expression that we can all hang this on is the Jet Stream, those high-level rivers of air that sweep and flow. When they stream to the high latitudes, the bring unseasonably warm air to the north and blast cold air south to the States. When they stream lower across the mid-latitude regions, they trap cold air up north and we freeze our butts off.

All of these variations of jet stream flow have happened for eons, of course, but climate forecasters predict that with the onset of the global climate crisis, they could become even more common and more severe, which means that "global warming" might not always mean "local warming" everywhere all the time or where you are at any given time.

So . . . wherever you are, stay home if you can, stay warm if you can, and DON'T be driving if you don't have to!

It's a "snow" day! (Even if it IS raining out there....)