so, what's going on with this?

it's those damned h-es.  both of them. they're evil.

things will get better when those high pressure systems break up or otherwise just go away, which should be soon right?

alas...

this is what i was saying about understanding this being more like imagining magnets hovering around the earth. that jet stream is not unfamiliar - we see it all of the time. in january. summer is defined by a jet stream that runs over the northwest territories, not a winter blocking pattern like this.

here's the trick: the reason this happens in the winter is that the amount of sunlight decreases over the northern hemisphere, due to the tilt in the earth's axis. you don't want to think of it in terms of tsi, though, it's more about the ultraviolet radiation hitting the earth's surfaces and rippling outwards, creating waves and fields and ultimately low pressure systems in the northern hemisphere. that giant h over greenland is the actual reason we have winter in canada, meaning the sun is only the indirect cause.

and, this is the kind of thing you see at a local solar minimum. yes, we're tilting back towards the sun, as we do every year, but the fact that the sun has turned itself down means we're getting the same kind of behaviour in the atmosphere that you see in the winter, even as we're tilting back.

there's lots of things that could happen to break the h up, even a hurricane.

but, if the dominant factor remains the sun, that giant h could be there for a while - and this could be a shitty summer.