A CHOICE BETWEEN POLAR VERTEX AND HEAT WAVES

Much of North America is in the grip of extremely low temperatures. Residents are being urged to stay indoors, with meteorologists warning that temperatures this low can be life-threatening, and severe frost bite can set in within ten minutes.
Cold air has rushed in from the Arctic, after a high pressure over northeast Canada and Greenland blocked the usual track of the weather.
Strong winds circulate around the pole, trapping the cold air in place and creating what’s known as a ‘polar vortex’ a swirling mass of cold air, which rotates anti-clockwise around the Arctic.
This year, the usual path of polar vortex has been disrupted, sending a blast of cold air into North America.
However, the heat wave besetting most of Brazil with temperatures above 42 C (108 F) has killed 32 elderly people in just two days in the city of Santos, in the southwestern state of Sao Paulo, the municipal Health Secretariat said Wednesday.
The victims, who died on Monday and Tuesday, ranged in age from 65 to 90 and all of them suffered from chronic health problems such as diabetes, hypertension and heart difficulties.
Dehydration caused by the intense heat could have aggravated the victims’ preexisting problems as well, the secretariat said.
Of the 32 people, 17 died at their homes, while the other 15 expired in health centers where they had been admitted.In Rio de Janerio over the weekend and that sent hordes of people heading to the city’s famous beach to cool off.
Officially 6.3 million people live in the city and based on these amazing shots of Ipanema beach and about half of them must have been on the sand.

Source: Herald Tribune, Agencies