the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
February 2, 2026
A massive winter storm marched across the country from the Southwest to New England between January 23 and January 26. It unleashed heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain on forty states, as well as dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills, impacting some 230 million people. The storm involved a strong surge of arctic air mixing with moisture from a warm Pacific Ocean and a warm Gulf of Mexico. This created a prolonged period of sub-freezing temperatures.
So how does global warming help create a huge winter storm affecting tens of millions of people?
The surface ocean temperatures in the northern Pacific are two to five degrees Fahrenheit above normal, and have been for the past year. The process of evaporation sends warm water vapor from the surface of the ocean into the atmosphere where it can change the jet stream pattern which drives our weather. In addition, global warming has slowed down the jet stream, which contains the cold Arctic air mass, making it weaker and allowing the cold air to escape the polar region and move south toward the equator.
The storm then pulled moisture from the Gulf of Mexico which is also two to five degrees above average. The warm water pushed more water vapor into the storm system increasing the amount of snow, sleet or freezing rain that was dumped across the country.
Major storms that affect roughly half the country or more were once rare events. But since 1980, they have become more frequent, more severe and more impactful on people’s lives. Before January 2026, in 2023, 2021, and 2020 there were heatwaves and droughts often affecting more than half the country. Then there was the Polar Vortex of 2019, the North American Derecho in June 2012, Snowmageddon in February 2010, the Blizzard of 1996, and the Superstorm of 1993. One cannot say that any one of these events was caused by a warming planet. One can say that a warming planet increases the risk of having these extreme storms and weather events more frequently.