12-13 NWR Polar Vortex

This is your Northwest report for Tuesday, December 13, I am David Sparks and we have had areas in the country including the Northwest which have been unusually cold in the last week. While driving to work I was listening to a news cast and an expert was referring to these weather phenomenon as being related to a polar vortex. In order to further understand, I called Troy Lundquist who is a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Boise. "Troy, I understand we are experiencing a polar vortex. Yes I guess a polar vortex might be the term some people used to describe a cold air outbreak but in simple terms I would just prefer to call it an intrusion of arctic air that gets really cold. In other words a cold snap? Yes. Exactly. I think those are terms that are easy to understand and pretty straightforward."

Elsewhere, after public exposure of the Pentagon wasting literally hundreds of billions of dollars, mynorthwest.com reports that about a week after slamming Boeing for out-of-control costs on Air Force One, the president-elect Donald Trump blasted Lockheed Martin on Twitter for its F-35 fighter plane program. Retired Army Major and CBS News Military Consultant Mike Lyons says it's too late to stop the program, but changes could be made. Lyons says Trump is using Twitter as a platform to start tough discussions.