Since I began my column over 10 years ago in IFR Magazine, I’ve strived to write as though you’re with me in the weather operations center. During most of my Air Force career, I worked as an aviation ...

In the atmospheric layer above it, about 10 to 30 miles up, is the stratospheric polar vortex, where every winter a sunlight-starved Arctic spins up a mass of cold air that, ultimately, dissipates ...