Disruptions and disarray from an unpredictable winter
Through December of last year to the present day, winter weather anomalies have disrupted predictable patterns. While some areas in the northern hemisphere have been met with warmer temperatures, others have experienced polar weather and heightened storms. Mt.A students have experienced a number of campus closures due to unsafe road conditions as a result of successive snowstorms. Campus closures have occurred on Jan. 26, Feb. 23, and Feb. 24 due to weather, in addition to closures from Feb. 11-13 out of an abundance of caution due to a concerning message found at the University.
Many students have found the accumulating closures to negatively impact their academic experience. Fourth-year Brycen Thibodeau said “I’m paying for the full course load […] but it feels like I’m only getting half of it.” Third-year Anna Grear further said many of her courses have had to cut content to stay on track. Meanwhile, fifth-year Nate Lesser’s independent study “had to be changed significantly.”
Besides losing class time, morale surrounding academics has also been impacted for some. Fourth-year Olivia Kingston explained she is “finding it hard to stay motivated.” However, not all students have viewed the closures as a burden and have made the most of their time not in class. Second-year Faith Mulholland said the closures have provided her “more time to breathe and focus on work I need to catch up on.” Fourth-year Anna Irwin has found the closures a great opportunity to spend more time skiing, which “helps my school work go more efficiently [than in] the confinement of being indoors during school hours.” Fourth-year Kael Quiring wrote, “[I’ve had] more time to write my thesis!”
Outside of Sackville, the winter storms have had a major impact in warmer areas, in some areas like the southern U.S. Some states experienced a generational snowstorm in late January, leading to emergency responses from states like Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. In areas that only experience snowfall in extremely rare circumstances, scarce resources are available to ensure safe travel. In Texas and Louisiana, tens of thousands of homes lost power for days due to ice and winds. Without the same resources that the northern U.S. and Canada use when dealing with winter weather, roads froze over and maintenance vehicles had difficulty restoring power in a timely manner. Mississippi and Louisiana reported a number of fatalities directly related to the cold, with residents experiencing hypothermia and difficulty getting to a hospital. The storms had a major ripple effect on transportation infrastructure across the U.S., with major highways like the Route 20 highway in Louisiana limiting traffic and resulting in delays in emergency response. Additionally, over 13,000 flights were grounded over the weekend of Jan. 24 to 25.
The storm surges are a result of unpredictable climate instability. When atmospheric vortexes shift, localized warm or cold air can be pushed out of its typical range. These patterns are known as El Niño (relocation of warmer, damper air from the equator) and La Niña (relocation of colder, dryer air from the poles). States like Texas that are relatively close to the equator were affected by La Niña in this instance. As climate change becomes increasingly present in day-to-day life, countries around the world will begin to see greater frequency of climate abnormalities like this.