Vortices

A friend recently asked, "Why is it I never heard about a Polar Vortex until a couple of years ago?"  I agreed with his question, but then immediately began to wonder what is a "vortex" anyway?

So I did what most of us do these days.  I "googled" it and discovered that a simple definition of vortex has to do primarily with liquid dynamics and is motion as that of a whirlpool.  It is also used to describe similar dynamics in gaseous and atmospheric form, such as a cyclone or tornado, or as in the case of our recent weather, the atmospheric phenomana know as a Polar Vortex.

I, like most people, am not a scientist or meteorologist all I know is that in the past few days here in North America the balmy days of autumn have rapidljy disappeared and it is suddenly winter.  We went from light sweaters and windbreakers to overcoats and scarves in a matter of hours.  In other words things changed rapidly.

The Polar Vortices of Earth, both northern and southern, are always there just like change is inevitable in our lives. Change may come in the form of a gentle breeze or babbling brook giving us time to gradually adapt and adjust, or it may come like a vortex sweeping away what was and sucking us into somthing different with little time to make adjustments.  We may have the luxuary of basking in Indian Summers, or it's "batten down the hatches!"

One thing we can count on is change, whether gradual or sudden.  The seasons come and the seasons go, and life changes.  Sometimes the only thing we can do is grab our coats, hats, gloves, and shovels and dig our way through.  Or we could build a fire, pull out the comfortors, settle in, and ride it out. Most often, as with winter, life requries both.