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Saanvi Kulkarni, 17, of Livingston, plans to take full advantage of a new voting law in New Jersey that allows some 17-year-olds to cast ballots in primary elections if they turn 18 before the general election.

The high school senior is set to cast her first vote in the 11th Congressional District special primary election on Feb. 4, and plans to vote again in the special general election on April 16, one day after she turns 18.

“In the United States a big advantage of our system is that we can complain, like when things don’t go the way that we want them to in our government we’re allowed to complain about it. But I don’t think complaining is enough, I think you also need to use your voice,” she told WHYY News.

Kulkarni is among the first group of 17-year-olds to benefit from the New Voter Empowerment Act that went into effect earlier this year.

Beth Thompson, the president of the New Jersey Association of Election Officials and the supervisor of the Hunterdon County Board of Elections, said the new law is designed to make teens aware of their civic duties and get them involved with the democratic process.

“I think that young people have a right to vote in the primary, to have their voice heard so that other people aren’t just making the choices,” she said.

Erik Cruz Morales, the director of democracy for the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, agreed that the New Voter Empowerment Act empowers young voters.

“It gives them an opportunity to become civically engaged and I think there’s a lot of appetite for young people to get involved right now, so we’re hoping that people come out to vote,” he said.

Heather Richner, the associate council in the democracy and justice program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said there is evidence that the earlier people vote, the more likely they will continue to vote.  She said giving 17-year-olds a seat at the table makes sense.

“This strengthens democracy for our future,” she said.

“We’re hoping this is going to make New Jersey a leader for voting rights in this country, especially as we head down a path where voting rights are being attacked,” she said.

HOWELL, New Jersey (WABC) — A woman in Howell, New Jersey, is making the oppressive and dangerous weather into something artistic.

She built an igloo in her front yard as a place where she and her family can hang out.

Wrapped up warm and snuggled inside, Jason, Lyla, Logan and Kane are living the igloo life.

“We have lights in here and my mom put food coloring,” 5-year-old Lyla said.

Kelly Grobelny is the architect of the magnificent front yard structure.

“I bought tin trays and made 200 blocks of ice,” Grobelny said.

It’s so cool it even stopped a school bus driver in his tracks.

Grobelny spent seven days switching out gloves and tucking in toe warmers into her shoes to keep warm in the frigid temperatures.

The igloo also lights up at night.

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We’ve worn layers. We’ve broken out the space heaters. We have donned winter hats, gloves and scarves up the wazoo.

But, there’s no escaping it — it is bleeping cold out, Jersey. And it’s kind of the only thing we can think about.

Robert Galizio, a 63-year-old from Spring Lake Heights, summed it up pretty succinctly when he had the dreaded misfortune of being outside Thursday night: “It’s been brutal.”

Usually, he’s outdoorsy. A jogger who likes to trot at the Jersey Shore. These days, he’s joined the rest of us, cursing our weather apps as temperatures have plummeted into the teens and single digits and aren’t budging. He’s avoiding the tundra out his front door, working more remote days so he doesn’t have to leave his house at all.

“And (now) we’re getting (more) snow.” His disappointment in the forecast is palpable.

“All good news.” At least his Jersey attitude hasn’t frozen to death.

Still, Galizio is wondering what we all are: why, oh WHY dear weather gods, is it so cold in New Jersey?

You can blame Canada. At least partially.

“An Arctic air mass pretty much came down through Canada and enveloped much of the United States … and because the high (pressure) is so strong, it’s really not going anywhere,” Michael Silva, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said over the phone Thursday.

The mass of bitterly cold air, which weather heads call a “polar vortex,” has just “settled over the country and it’s really not going to leave until late this weekend,” Silva said while looking at the forecast from his Mount Holly office.

During most of the year, the polar vortex is parked north of us, near the North Pole. During the winter, it comes down to visit, and brings cold temperatures with it.

That’s thanks to another gem of the meteorological world called the “polar jet stream” — sort of like a river of fast-moving air high in the atmosphere that dips down to allow cold air to flow from the north, where it usually belongs, into this region.

But even the experts aren’t fully sure why the cold won’t just give us a break.

“Why this pattern has persisted this winter is not fully known,” David Robinson, the New Jersey State Climatologist who is based at Rutgers University, told NJ Advance Media.

The reason may be linked to “distant ocean temperatures in the Pacific and atmospheric disturbances over the Atlantic (Ocean)” said Robinson, but the cause is still being determined.

Is climate change to blame?

Maybe — but it’s complicated.

Trends tied to climate change are measured by longer spans of time.

Weather and climate aren’t the same thing, scientists say. The “weather” is specific to a time and place but “climate” is a place’s average weather combined with other environmental factors over an extended period.

So you can’t really blame one cold day, or even an entirely frigid winter, on climate change.

But, they may be related.

Links between climate change and the extreme cold we can’t escape “may be associated with warmer north Atlantic arctic waters that impact the atmosphere, even at very high altitudes,” Robinson said Thursday.

But the “jury remains out” on that theory.

“There is debate within the climate community as to whether persistent jet stream patterns that lead to areas of cold and warmth are associated with a changing climate,” he said.

Still, it makes sense the polar vortex would move southward, toward us, thanks to global warming because the planet isn’t warming in a uniform way, Steven Decker, the director of the Meteorology Undergraduate Program at Rutgers University, said in 2024 when a mass of Arctic air last moved into our area.

“It’s warming more at the pole, overall decreasing the strength of the polar vortex and the jet stream and making it more susceptible to being dislodged and sent our way,” Decker said.

“While cold conditions in the U.S. have made headlines, Greenland and the Arctic have quietly had a remarkably mild winter,” Ben Noll, a meteorologist at The Washington Post wrote Wednesday.

Some scientists link polar vortex disruptions to melting sea ice, resulting from human-caused climate change.

Without that ice, the temperature of water in the Atlantic Ocean is closer to that in the Arctic. Further down the line, it means a polar jet stream with strong and frequent waves bring cold air into the Northeast with weakened air to the west and east of our region.

So, how long will we have to wear our parkas?

A break in the below freezing weather may not come until early next week, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

But it won’t last long. After temperatures are slated to reach the balmy mid-30s, a cold weather pattern is forecasted to linger into the middle of February, according to experts from AccuWeather.

“This overall pattern is expected to last for at least the next two weeks,” Robinson, the Rutgers professor, said.

“This doesn’t mean it will be as cold throughout this period as this current week’s frigid conditions but will likely keep temperatures mostly below normal well into February.”

And then what? Will we ever feel warmth again?

Beyond next month, “it is uncertain when the (cold) pattern will break,” Robinson said.

But he had a glimmer of good news — “at some point it will.”

Memorial Day is a short 115 days away. Til then, stay warm.