been making headlines over the last few days with record breaking conditions on either

end of the temperature scale. Kim Ji-yeon takes a look at the extreme weather

conditions around the globe. Some cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis and

Chicago experienced sensory temperatures that dipped to below minus-50 degrees.

Around 14 counties in the state of New York declared a state of emergency due to the frigid

conditions, closing schools and airports. More than 5-hundred passengers taking regular

train services in Chicago were left stranded in their compartments for 14 hours when the

trains they were traveling in got stuck in ice and snow.

Experts attribute the rush of cold air due to something called a distorted polar vortex...

which is a circulation of strong, upper-level winds that normally surround the northern

pole in a counter-clockwise direction. Normally a polar low-pressure system keeps

the bitter cold air locked in the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere,... but this can

become distorted and dip further south ... which is what much of the United States is experiencing

right now. But it's a different story on the southern

part of the hemisphere...where high pressure is bringing in the heat from the equator,

which is leading to extremely hot weather conditions.

In the northern part of Argentina, the mercury level shot up to 50 degrees, the highest in

the region in a century. At least 10 people have died due to the extreme

heat wave there. Some researchers say the Arctic airmass that

the U.S. is experiencing now could be related to global warming because it coincides with

unusually high temperatures in other regions that are usually cold at this time of the

year.

"Because we've got this very westerly jet stream blowing across the UK, it's tending

to draw a lot of warm air up from the Mediterranean and also from further afield such as the tropical

Atlantic, so lots of warm air moving up across Spain into Italy and parts of southeastern

Europe."

The U.S. National Weather Service says it expects this Arctic airmass to continue until

Friday. Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.