About
Why break a polar vortex?
In the first week of November 2026, the stratospheric polar vortex over the Arctic started falling apart weeks earlier than anything in the records, which go back to the 1950s. The previous earliest major breakdown came on 28 November 1968. "Polar vortex" and "Beast from the East" were suddenly all over search trends and front pages, but very few people know what the vortex actually is, or why a warming 30 km above the pole might mean cold where they live, weeks later.
Split the Vortex lets you learn it with your hands. You play the planetary waves that knock the vortex over, in twelve missions built on real events, plus a Record Attack, a sandbox, a lab, a timeline and a quiz.
How the toy model works
- Wind. One number, the westerly wind at 60° latitude and 10 hPa (around 30 km up), stands for the vortex's strength. It relaxes back towards a seasonal value over about ten days, as if the dark pole were cooling it back into shape.
- Bulges. Two complex amplitudes stand for wave-1 (a one-sided bulge that shoves the vortex off the pole) and wave-2 (a two-sided squeeze that splits it). They drift eastward faster when the wind is stronger, and fade over a few days.
- Waves. Each tap adds a pulse from a fixed longitude. Pulses that arrive in step with the existing bulge add to it; pulses out of step cancel some of it. Every pulse brakes the wind, and big bulges keep braking it. That feedback is what makes the collapse speed up at the end.
- Charney–Drazin. When the wind is very strong, waves can't get up into it. In the game they mostly bounce off until you've slowed the vortex.
- Aftermath. After a reversal, a dice roll decides whether the disturbance couples down to the weather. We use roughly two in three, a bit higher for splits, following the research cited below. The cold lobes are placed 90° from the wave-2 ridges (for a split) or opposite the wave-1 ridge (for a displacement).
This is not a forecast. The game is a cartoon of real atmospheric dynamics, built for intuition. It leaves out higher wave numbers, the vertical structure of the atmosphere, the QBO's detailed effects, ocean coupling, and everything else a real weather model does. Real-event dates and facts come from the sources below. Gameplay numbers (wave strengths, energy, recharge) are invented for fun. For real forecasts, ask your national weather service.
Features
- 12 missions from 1952 to 2026, each with three stars to earn (saved on your device)
- Record Attack: a random season with random El Niño and QBO conditions. How early can you break it?
- Sandbox mode, Gentle mode, keyboard controls (1–6, Space, E)
- Shareable result links and a downloadable result card
- Vortex Lab, a timeline with a season chart, and a 30-statement myth-or-fact quiz
Sources
- AFP via phys.org, "Polar vortex faltering weeks earlier than ever recorded" (7 Nov 2026): ECMWF's Tim Stockdale and Frédéric Vitart, Météo-France, the Met Office's Grahame Madge, and the November SSWs of 1958, 1968 and 2025. phys.org
- Scientific American, "The polar vortex is about to go haywire": Andrea Lopez Lang (UW–Madison), Judah Cohen (MIT), the spinning-top analogy, and 28 Nov 1968 as the previous earliest. scientificamerican.com
- Severe Weather Europe, "Polar Vortex Split Forecast: The Earliest Stratospheric Warming on Record Is Coming": the 96% ECMWF ensemble reversal by 11 Nov, ~22 °C stratospheric anomaly, forecast split. severe-weather.eu
- Nature World News (3 Nov 2026): Niño-3.4 at +2.1 °C, about 6 warmings per decade since 1958, quotes from Judah Cohen and the NWS's Laura Ciasto. natureworldnews.com
- Rus Tourism News (7 Nov 2026): winds at ~30 km weakened to around 1 m/s; ECMWF members predicting reversal. rustourismnews.com
- Wikipedia, "Sudden stratospheric warming" (Scherhag 1952, STRATWARM 1964, warmings of up to 50 °C, frequency) and "Polar vortex" (altitudes, 1853, 2013–14, 2019). SSW · Polar vortex
- University of Bristol (Richard Hall et al.), about two-thirds of SSWs affecting surface weather, up to 40 days, with splits faster and stronger. bristol.ac.uk
- NCAR-led study on the January 2021 SSW and the February 2021 Texas cold. eurekalert.org
- Lee, Butler & Manney (2025), "Two major sudden stratospheric warmings during winter 2023/2024", Weather. NOAA repository
- The 2002 Antarctic major warming and ozone-hole split. ADS abstract
- January–February 2019 North American cold wave (Chicago −23 °F, at least 22 deaths). Wikipedia
- Beast from the East, 24 Feb – 4 Mar 2018. Internet Geography
- NOAA Climate.gov polar vortex blog (early end to the 2024–25 season, 9 March 2025). climate.gov
- Odin/SMR observations of the January 2013 warming (6–20 January descent). Chalmers
- Butler et al. (2017), "A sudden stratospheric warming compendium", Earth System Science Data. ESSD
Credits
Concept, code, writing and art: made for dailyma.de, a new site every day. Fonts: Bricolage Grotesque and IBM Plex via Google Fonts. Coastlines are simplified by hand. No trackers, no cookies. Your stars, best record and theme live only in your browser's local storage.