we're happening to get hit with that bit of purple right now. it sucks but it's random; it could have fallen in any direction.

note all the bright red. that is actually a consequence of the purple dissipating, which was the cold we all suffered through. you can actually see where this chunk of purple is pinching off  at the wisconsin-michigan border, in the upper peninsula.

the red will rapidly consume the purple, and the sun is already shining again in most of the polar region.

the american eastern seaboard just got hit with the remnants of a category 2 hurricane. that's why it's snowing. that's not because the oceans are cold, or the amoc is shutting down or anything like that. hurricanes are complicated, but they form primarily due to temperature gradients in the open ocean. all that snow is ocean water that evaporated, cooled and came crashing down again.

it hit a cold front that's a remnant - hopefully the last - of the sun's recent nuclear strike on the earth. the sun has recently nuked the north pole several times, throwing cold air every which way.

cold front  + hurricane = north eastern storm.

the result still holds that all of this experienced cold is actually a consequence of two warming processes, the increased radiation in the arctic (sudden stratospheric warming) and the increased ocean temperatures in the atlantic, which is a longterm trend. 

the fact that the sun is quiet right now is going to dampen this a little, but the data suggests a warming trend. the northern hemisphere is going to take a little bit of time to deal with this cold air everywhere, but when it does lift, the spring will come on suddenly and summer will follow quickly. we're already seeing glimpses of this. we should avoid late cold snaps this year because there's going to be no more cold air to scatter.