While some have pointed the finger at climate change to explain the bitterly cold winters of late, Neal Colgrass looks at a recent paper in the 
Journal of Climate
that “extreme cold snaps will become rarer as the climate continues to warm.”  

“The argument goes like this: The Arctic has been warming for decades, and temperatures in mid-latitudes (or temperate zones, where most of us live) vary less often when there’s less temperature difference between the tropics and the poles. Think of it this way: If air masses were all the same, there would theoretically be no fluctuation. So, less difference, less fluctuation.”