instead of watching the SOTU...

I’m reading climate papers. This one is about storm tracks affecting continental Alaska, the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea:

“The strong formation area over the North American continental interior is largely a result of lee cyclogenesis behind the coastal mountain ranges, that is, cyclogenesis initiated by the conservation of potential vorticity (Holton 2004)” - Mesquita et al 2010

Vorticity is my new favorite term. I take it to mean the degree of vortexiness.