Keep hearing of a “ridge of high pressure” in the weather forecast? Here are two.
The top is Arctic and Alaska, the star is Seattle, and you can spot Baja California. Oriented? Note the polar jet stream coming across the Pacific, turning south over BC. Now note the blue vertical ridgeline over the Yukon. There is a horizontal one off California. In each case, the winds are making a long detour around the ridge.
Such are the features that have developed with the slowing of the jet stream by Arctic overheating, allowing the path to meander and split, much the same way as a river meanders when the downhill becomes very gradual. It makes for strange weather.
