The Polar Vortex conspiracy

Remember the Polar Vortex of 2014. That was this very strong low pressure that came down from the North pole to cause some of the coldest Artic-like weather and massive amounts of snow mostly in the East and particularly in the South.

Well, this weather event created a conspiracy theory that the United States government faked the snow that fell in the South, that it was some sort of plastic stuff that looked like snow.
Where did this crazy idea come from? It originated on the Internet, mostly on YouTube. It seems that many conspiracy theories have their origin on the Internet. One video shows Southerners trying to melt this fake snow with butane lighters. The snow changed to a gas rather than water. The makers of the video claimed that the snow gave off a toxic smell. So, the idiots immediately blamed it on the government.

There are several reasons that this is a bogus idea. One is that when heated, snow often sublimes, which means that it goes from a solid directly into a gas. That's chemistry! The other thing is that butane burns with a smell. That's caused by an incomplete combustion that leaves an oily residue. This residue smells. I should know because I'm a chemist.

The main reason this theory is nuts is because if the snow were fake and made from plastic, this plastic would not go away. It would be possible to collect it for analysis. This obviously was not done because it wasn't plastic; it was real snow.

So, could a Polar Vortex cause unusual snowfall and cold in the South? The answer is yes. Both of Earth's poles contain Polar Vortexes (essentially a cyclone) that persist for long periods and hover over the poles most of the time. These low-pressure cyclones strengthen in the winter. They are large, extending over 1,000 kilometers. In the Northern polar region these cyclones rotate in the counter clockwise direction.

That's nice, but how did one of these Polar Vortex devils cause trouble in the South? That requires a strong high pressure to develop in the Pacific Ocean. When such a pressure extends to the North Polar Region, it can displace the Polar Vortex there and make it drop or actually break apart and extend down to the United States. That's what happened, and it spread subzero temperatures and snow down into the Southern states. This doesn't happen very often, but it has happened in the past. There's no conspiracy here.

Thanks for reading.