''Siberian Express'' is a meteorological term in the United States describing the arrival of an extremely cold
air mass
In meteorology, an air mass is a volume of air defined by its temperature and humidity. Air masses cover many hundreds or thousands of square miles, and adapt to the characteristics of the surface below them. They are classified according to ...
of Siberian origins. It specifically refers to an origin in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
. The term is most commonly employed by the news media when such a frigid air mass moves into the northern plains or
upper Midwest
The Upper Midwest is a northern subregion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon, the region is usually defined to include the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wi ...
. Meteorologically, it is typically associated with a phenomenon called the
Pacific–North American teleconnection pattern
The Pacific–North American teleconnection pattern (PNA) is a large-scale weather pattern with two modes, denoted positive and negative, and which relates the atmospheric circulation pattern over the North Pacific Ocean with the one over the ...
(PNA).
"Siberian Express" was the nickname coined by a meteorologist to describe the January 17, 1982
cold wave
A cold wave (known in some regions as a cold snap, cold spell or Arctic Snap) is a weather phenomenon that is distinguished by a cooling of the air. Specifically, as used by the U.S. National Weather Service, a cold wave is a rapid fall in temp ...
event hitting much of the United States. Also called "
Cold Sunday", the event broke many all-time record lows.
Paleoclimatologist Jack A. Wolfe published in 1992 about the geographic origin. The frozen Arctic Ocean produced the frigid air for the "Siberian Express", the
high-pressure system in Siberia which was southward blocked by the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...
and
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...
, that transported the air down into North America.
See also
*
Siberian High
The Siberian High (also Siberian Anticyclone; (''Aziatsky antitsiklon''); zh, 西伯利亞高壓; Pinyin ''Xībólìyǎ gāoyā''; Kazakh Азия антициклоны (''Aziya antitsiklonı'')) is a massive collection of cold dry air that a ...
*
Cold wave
A cold wave (known in some regions as a cold snap, cold spell or Arctic Snap) is a weather phenomenon that is distinguished by a cooling of the air. Specifically, as used by the U.S. National Weather Service, a cold wave is a rapid fall in temp ...
*
Cold front
A cold front is the leading edge of a cooler mass of air at ground level that replaces a warmer mass of air and lies within a pronounced surface Trough (meteorology), trough of Low-pressure area, low pressure. It often forms behind an extratropica ...
*
Pineapple Express
*
Pacific Organized Track System
*
*
References
External links
Hawaiian–Siberian Express*
{{cold wave
Anticyclones
Environment of Siberia