Extreme weather across the nation this week. New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. experiencing record high temperatures. Meanwhile, parts of Washington state and Denver are seeing record lows. Mashable's Andrew Freedman explains how the polar vortex split is causing wild weather coast to coast.
"In this case the Polar Vortex split into two. You had one portion of it move into the Western U.S. and Canada. While at the same time one portion moved into Europe and Eurasia. So those are the two cold spots of the northern hemisphere right now. And in the eastern U.S. suddenly we had this incredible warm up," explains Freedman.
In New York City people felt a high of 72 degrees, which beat the warmest temperature on this date since 1930 when it reached 68 degrees on February 21st.
"It's easier for us to set these high temperature records as the climate continues to warm. So that's the bottom line," says Freedman.
Read more at [Mashable](https://mashable.com/2018/02/15/polar-vortex-split-stratospheric-warming-snow-cold-europe-us/).
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