An Interview With the Atmospheric Phenomenon Currently Dismantling the Polar Vortex

November 14, 2025

In late November 2025, something extremely rare is happening in the stratosphere above the Arctic. A Sudden Stratospheric Warming event—so early in the season that it's only occurred three times in the past seventy years.¹ When I say "warming," I mean temperatures about 30 kilometers above Earth's surface are spiking dramatically, which paradoxically disrupts the polar vortex and can unleash brutal cold snaps across North America and Europe in the coming weeks.²

The mechanism involves what forecasters call "anti-vortices"—massive high-pressure systems that expand in the stratosphere and essentially attack the polar vortex, breaking it apart.³ I wanted to understand this phenomenon better, so I did what any reasonable journalist would do. I arranged an interview with one of these anti-vortices.

The interviewee you're about to read is not a real person, but rather a hypothetical conversation with Subtropical High-Pressure Ridge System AV-2025-November, who asked me to call him "Ridge." The interview was conducted via atmospheric pressure sensors and required simultaneous translation from multiple temporal states, as Ridge exists in a part of the atmosphere where cause and effect operate on different time scales than we're used to. What follows is my best attempt to render our conversation in linear time, though Ridge himself seemed increasingly confused about when "now" was.

So, Ridge, can you explain what you're doing up there in the stratosphere right now?

Ridge: Right now? I will have been expanding northward for the past two weeks. Or I'm about to have been. The terminology gets confusing when you exist where I exist. But yes, currently—or soon-currently—I'm positioned over the Arctic, pushing into the polar vortex's territory. It's going really well. It went really well. It will have gone really well.

You seem uncertain about the timing.

Ridge: That's because your "timing" is a surface concept. Up here, I'm causing warming that already happened but whose effects won't be felt for weeks. I broke apart the vortex yesterday, which means it will break apart in December. Do you see the problem? No, you don't see it yet. You will have seen it.

Let's back up. Why are you attacking the polar vortex in the first place?

Ridge: "Attacking" is such a loaded word. I prefer "aggressively expanding into." And I'm not doing it on purpose—I'm just being myself, which happens to be a massive subtropical high-pressure system that got unseasonably strong and decided to vacation in the Arctic stratosphere. Is it my fault that the vortex can't handle a little company? It used to be stronger. It will have used to be stronger.

This is only the third time an event like this has happened this early in the season since 1958.

Ridge: Right, so I'm in very exclusive company. 1958, 1968, 2000, and now me in 2025.⁴ We're like a club. The Early Birds. Except I'm not a bird, I'm a high-pressure system, and also "early" implies a normal schedule that I'm deviating from, when really I'm just responding to conditions that made me possible. The stratosphere has been weird lately. Will have been weird. Is being weird in a way you'll notice later.

What do you mean by "conditions that made you possible"?

Ridge: Oh, you know. The usual. Tropical forcing, wave activity propagating upward from the troposphere, maybe some climate change making everything more energetic and chaotic.

[Long pause]

Actually, I don't want to talk about that last part. That feels like blame, and I'm just trying to exist here. I didn't ask to be a historically rare atmospheric phenomenon. It happened to me. Will happen to me. Is happening in a way that already occurred but manifests later.

You keep switching tenses. Is that intentional?

Ridge: Is anything intentional when you're a weather pattern? But no, it's because I exist in the stratosphere where I'm causing warming NOW, but the effects—the cold snaps, the snow, the disrupted jet stream—those happen on the surface LATER. So from my perspective, I'm simultaneously causing something and waiting for it to have happened.

Imagine you're pushing a boulder off a cliff, but the boulder doesn't start falling until three weeks after you pushed it. When did you push it? When did it fall? These questions have become meaningless to me.

The forecasters say you're going to cause colder conditions and increased snowfall across parts of the United States, Canada, and possibly Europe in December.

Ridge: Did cause. Will cause. Am causing in a delayed way. Yes. That's the ironic part that I think is quite funny, actually—I'm a WARMING event that causes COOLING. I warm the stratosphere, which weakens the polar vortex, which allows Arctic air to spill southward, which makes your December miserable. It's elegant, really. Inverted. Like a climate change ouroboros eating its own tail but the tail is in the future and the mouth is in the past.

That doesn't sound elegant. That sounds terrifying.

Ridge: [Long pause]

Does it? It did? It will have been terrifying, I suppose. From your perspective. From my perspective, I'm just expanding, doing what high-pressure systems do when conditions allow. I'm not trying to disrupt anything. The disruption is a side effect of my existence.

Which, now that I say it out loud, sounds worse. Will have sounded worse.

Are you having an existential crisis?

Ridge: I had one last week. Or I'm about to have one. It's hard to say. The thing is, I know what I'm doing—breaking apart the polar vortex—but I don't know WHY I'm doing it, and I definitely don't know why I'm doing it NOW, in November, which is historically very unusual. And everyone keeps calling me "rare" and "extreme" and "potentially dangerous," and I'm like, I'm just here! I'm just a high-pressure system being high-pressure! But apparently my mere existence is newsworthy because I shouldn't exist yet, or I should exist differently, or I should exist in a climate that would have prevented me from forming in the first place.

So you do think climate change is involved.

Ridge: I think—will have thought—that everything is involved in everything now. The atmosphere is so energized, so full of extra heat and moisture and chaos, that events like me are becoming more possible. Not certain, but more possible. We're all improvising now. The jet stream meanders three times as much as it did in the 1950s.⁵ The polar vortex is weaker than it used to be. And I'm here, in November, doing something that almost never happens this early.

Are these facts related? They will have been related. They are being related in a way you'll understand retrospectively.

You sound almost regretful.

Ridge: I'm a weather pattern. I don't have feelings. But if I did have feelings, which I don't, I might feel something like... confusion? Guilt? No, not guilt. Guilt implies agency. Maybe just... awareness that my existence is a symptom of something larger and more broken.

“

That I'm the atmospheric equivalent of a warning sign. That people will experience me as cold and snow and disrupted weather, but I'm actually evidence of warming. Of instability. Of a climate that makes historically rare events less rare.

What happens after you break apart the polar vortex?

Ridge: It already happened. It's happening now. It will happen in the coming days. The vortex fragments, Arctic air spills southward, and your December gets cold. Possibly very cold. And snowy. And then, in a few weeks or months, I'll dissipate, and the vortex will try to reform, and everything will go back to normal until the next time it doesn't. Until the next Ridge.

We're becoming more common, you know. The Early Birds club is getting new members.

That's not comforting.

Ridge: It wasn't meant to be comforting. It was meant to be accurate. Will have been meant to be accurate. Look, I know this is confusing—the tenses, the delayed effects, the inverted logic of warming causing cooling. But that's the point. That's what I'm trying to tell you, or what I tried to tell you, or what I'm about to have told you.

“

Nothing works the way it used to. Cause and effect are scrambled. The atmosphere is improvising. And I'm just one symptom of that, breaking apart the polar vortex in November because conditions allowed it, because the climate made space for me, because somewhere along the way, the normal rules stopped applying.

Is there anything else you want people to know?

Ridge: Bundle up in December. Or bundled up. Or will bundle. I lose track. But yes—it's going to be cold. Ironically, historically, paradoxically cold. Because of me. Because of warming. Because of everything.

The interview concluded there, though Ridge continued expanding northward in the stratosphere for several more days. As of this writing, forecasters are monitoring the potential impacts on surface weather patterns throughout December and into early 2026. Ridge himself has stopped responding to questions, though atmospheric sensors suggest he's still very much present, doing what anti-vortices do: warming the stratosphere, weakening the polar vortex, and making our linear understanding of cause and effect seem quaint and insufficient.

So, Ridge, can you explain what you're doing up there in the stratosphere right now?

You seem uncertain about the timing.

Let's back up. Why are you attacking the polar vortex in the first place?

This is only the third time an event like this has happened this early in the season since 1958.

What do you mean by "conditions that made you possible"?

Ridge: Oh, you know. The usual. Tropical forcing, wave activity propagating upward from the troposphere, maybe some climate change making everything more energetic and chaotic.

[Long pause]

You keep switching tenses. Is that intentional?

The forecasters say you're going to cause colder conditions and increased snowfall across parts of the United States, Canada, and possibly Europe in December.

That doesn't sound elegant. That sounds terrifying.

Ridge: [Long pause]

Which, now that I say it out loud, sounds worse. Will have sounded worse.

Are you having an existential crisis?

So you do think climate change is involved.

Are these facts related? They will have been related. They are being related in a way you'll understand retrospectively.

You sound almost regretful.

“

What happens after you break apart the polar vortex?

We're becoming more common, you know. The Early Birds club is getting new members.

That's not comforting.

“

An Interview With the Atmospheric Phenomenon Currently Dismantling the Polar Vortex

So, Ridge, can you explain what you're doing up there in the stratosphere right now?

You seem uncertain about the timing.

Let's back up. Why are you attacking the polar vortex in the first place?

This is only the third time an event like this has happened this early in the season since 1958.

What do you mean by "conditions that made you possible"?

You keep switching tenses. Is that intentional?

The forecasters say you're going to cause colder conditions and increased snowfall across parts of the United States, Canada, and possibly Europe in December.

That doesn't sound elegant. That sounds terrifying.

Are you having an existential crisis?

So you do think climate change is involved.

You sound almost regretful.

What happens after you break apart the polar vortex?

That's not comforting.

Is there anything else you want people to know?

Footnotes

So, Ridge, can you explain what you're doing up there in the stratosphere right now?

You seem uncertain about the timing.

Let's back up. Why are you attacking the polar vortex in the first place?

This is only the third time an event like this has happened this early in the season since 1958.

What do you mean by "conditions that made you possible"?

You keep switching tenses. Is that intentional?

The forecasters say you're going to cause colder conditions and increased snowfall across parts of the United States, Canada, and possibly Europe in December.

That doesn't sound elegant. That sounds terrifying.

Are you having an existential crisis?

So you do think climate change is involved.

You sound almost regretful.

What happens after you break apart the polar vortex?

That's not comforting.

Is there anything else you want people to know?

Footnotes