The stratospheric major warmings of 1979 and 1980 are discussed from a transformed Eulerian-mean viewpoint. For both warmings a high latitude polar night jet core existed prior to the circulation reversal. It is suggested that the position of this jet core was important in the development of the warmings, and some theoretical justificaton for this is given in terms of the relation between the norm of the Eliassen-Palm flux and the refractive index of the zonal mean flow. The possibility that the position of the jet arose from the decay of an earlier warming pulse is discussed. Some comparison is made between transformed and standard Eulerian-mean diagnostics, and from these it is concluded that the transformed picture indeed fulfills expectations that it is closer to a Lagrangian description of the stratosphere during warming conditions. Comparison is alsomade between the observed warmings and recent numerically simulated warnings. Differences are found, notably in the diagnosis of high latitude acceleration in the 1980 prewarming period and in the position of appearance of the zero wind in the 1979 warming period. The possibility that preconditioning of the zonal flow by an earlier warming pulse is an important aspect in the development of an atmospheric major warming, which may explain the discrepancies with model results, is discussed. Support is drawn from earlier studies of stratospheric warmings.