Frigid Eastern Winters and Warm Western Ones Nothing New -- Blame the Jet Stream

A new study has found that the wavy jet stream pattern that tends to bring warm winter weather to the U.S. West and cold weather to the East was set in place 4,000 years ago.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, also suggests that climate change may help keep the wavy pattern in place.

"It's possible the kinds of changes we are seeing with increased jet stream sinuosity might continue into the future as a result of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, although it's not a perfect comparison," said Gabriel Bowen, a geochemist at the University of Utah and an author on the study.

When the jet stream is very wavy, it tends to bring warm air up from the tropics into the U.S. West.  It then kinks up toward the Arctic and brings cold air down to the Great Plains and the East, Bowen said.

Some researchers have suggested that climate change, which has resulted in a rapidly warming Arctic, is leading to jet stream kinks that keep extreme weather in place, although that hypothesis is still being debated.

Frigid Eastern Winters and Warm Western Ones Nothing New -- Blame the Jet Stream