Update: How’s U.S. winter weather changing in a warming world?

Cold extremes are indeed waning over most of the midlatitude Northern Hemisphere, but a decade-plus debate on the Arctic’s role continues.

When a full-fledged snowstorm descended on the U.S. Gulf Coast in mid-January 2025, followed by a night of unprecedented cold across some bayous and beaches (see Part I of this two-part post), it did more than turn New Orleans and Mobile into winter wonderlands. It reignited a topic that’s cropped up again and again across science and media landscapes since the early 2010s: Is a warming Arctic affecting winter extremes over North America and Eurasia? And if so, how?

Read more on Yale Climate Connections.