Snow and Ice in the Northern Hemisphere: Winter 22/23

[SteveB]

5 minutes ago, Aleman said:

To get back on topic:

There's lots of new snow and ice after a bit of a pause. The main pack has linked to Alaska/Yukon and the low that brought those northerlies has driven widespread snow down the western USA, almost to the Mexican border. There's a bonus the latest system bringing some westward expansion to Russia. Meanwhile, Laptev is filling in.

It's fantastic to see everywhere else in the Northern hemisphere do well.

 

[Turnedoutniceagain]

Snow on the Urals and a big increase in the size of the Polar ice-cap 

 

[damianslaw]

5 hours ago, Aleman said:

To get back on topic:

There's lots of new snow and ice after a bit of a pause. The main pack has linked to Alaska/Yukon and the low that brought those northerlies has driven widespread snow down the western USA, almost to the Mexican border. There's a bonus the latest system bringing some westward expansion to Russia. Meanwhile, Laptev is filling in.

Encouraging to see rapid expansion along northern most part Russia into Scandi - if the precipitation shown on the map is all snow.. I remember it doing this in 2009, rather have snow into scandi than much of central/southern russia.

[Midlands Ice Age]

7 hours ago, Aleman said:

To get back on topic:

There's lots of new snow and ice after a bit of a pause. The main pack has linked to Alaska/Yukon and the low that brought those northerlies has driven widespread snow down the western USA, almost to the Mexican border. There's a bonus the latest system bringing some westward expansion to Russia. Meanwhile, Laptev is filling in.

Thanks for the above Aleman....

Masie has just updated and snow/ice extent is behaving much as I predicted in my post on friday with the change to the weather circulation patterns now taking hold.

The high pressure now dominating the weatern Arctic and the low pressure systems  aligning themselves along the coastline into Northern Russia. The only slight problem for the sea ice might be the slight extension of the low pressure into the Yukatan pennisular which might bring milder winds back into the ESS and Chukchi.

So, as Aleman predicted, the snow has moved down the spine of the NA continent and with high pressure developing behind it in the Eastern Northern Pacific aligned North South, I can see a fairly cold North America for a little time to come. 

Similarly for the Russian continent, over the weekend we have seen the depressions pushed southwards along and into the coast line. With the cold air from the Arctic being pushed into place into Central Russia,  more widespread snowfalls are now going to happen, pretty well up to Moscow.  Expect a continuation of the chart shown by Aleman above with good snowfalls.

 

Now to sea ice ...

 I last reported that the sea ice refreeze had slowed (fri),.... as the change in weather conditions took hold.

Well this process continued over the weekend, with gains of only (+28K) on saturday. This has left the comparative Masie chart well down on last year  (though well above the previous 4 years still) -

However, today the sea ice  started to expand/contract in the way I forecast on friday, with a gain today of 128K Km2.

The main area which held steady or contracted were as predicted in the ESS which actually fell (-22k)  over the 2 days as the predicted easterly took over, and pushed the ice away from Wrangle Island again.

However next door Laptev began to fill in the holes left towards the coastline and gained (+22K) in the 2 days. Kara (again as predicted) is now freezing westwards (towards the Severnya Islands (+5k)), and the Berants sea (+6K) increased to nearly 20K Km2 as the ice pack moves ever closer to Svalbard and the outer Siberian Islands.

The star of this area (again as forecast) was Beaufort which had a flash freeze connecting it to Alaska/Yukon (+74K). I expect Beaufort to now continue with a quick freeze. 

Steady ice gains in North American Arctic with gains in the CAA (+31k), Baffin (+18K), and Greenland (+18K) over the 2 day period, 

 

Lastly to temperatures -

CR has seen a small reduction in world temperatures over the couple of days, and the outbreak of cold in the weatern/central US looks impressive, also the Arctic is now cooling again (see below). 

          and       

 

The drop in the Arctic 80 degrees and above was once again during a period of slow ice growth (over the weekend). 

 The actual temperature reported today has dropped below 260K for the first time at 258.0K. This translates to an average of -15C though still about 4C above the 1970 - 2000 average.

So we are just at the start of the new wetaher regime....... where does it go next?

MIA 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[damianslaw]

16 minutes ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Thanks for te above Aleman....

Masie has just updated and snow/ice extent is behaving much as I predicted in my posyt on friday with the change to the weather circulation patterns now taking hold.

The high pressure now dominating the weatern Arctic and the low pressure systems  aligning themselves along the coastline into Northern Russia. The only slight problem for the sea ice might be the slight extension of the low pressure into the Yukatan pennisular which might bring milder winds backinto the ESS and Chukchi.

So, as Aleman predicted, the snow has moved down the spine of the NA continent and with high pressure developing behind it in the Eastern Northern Pacific aligned North South, I can see a fairly cold North America for a little time to come. 

Similarly for the Russian continent, over the weekend we have seen the depressions pushed southwards along and into the coast line. With the cold air from the Arctic being pushed into place into Central Russia,  more widespread snowfalls are now going to happen, pretty well up to Moscow.  Expect a continuation of the chart shown by Aleman above with good snowfalls.

 

Now to sea ice ...

 I last reported that the sea ice refreeze had slowed (fri),.... as the change in weather conditions took hold.

Well this process continued over the weekend, with gains of only (+28K) on saturday. This has left the comparative Masie chart well down on last year  (though still well above the previous 4 years still) -

However, today the sea ice  started to expand/contract in the way I forecast on friday, with a gain today of 128K Km2.

The main area which held steady or contracted were as predicted in the ESS which actually fell (-22k)  over the 2 daya s the predicted easterly took over, and pushed the ice away from Wrangle Island again.

However nextdoor Laptev began to fill in the holes left towards the coastline and gained (+22K) in the 2 days. Kara (again as predicted) is now freezing westwards (towards the Severnya Islands (+5k)), and the Berants sea (+6K) increased to nearly 20K Km2 as the ice pack moves ever closer to Svalbard and the outer Siberian Islands.

The star of this area (again as forecast) was Beaufort which had a flash freeze connecting it to Alaska/Yukon (+74K). I expect Beaufort to now continue with a quick freeze. 

Steady ice gains in North American Arctic with gains in the CAA (+31k), Baffin (+18K), and Greenland (+18K) over the 2 day period, 

 

Lastly to temperatures -

CR has seen a small reduction in world temperatures over the couple of days, and the outbreak of cold in the weatern/central US looks impressive, also the Arctic is now cooling again (see below). 

          and       

 

The drop in the Arctic 80 degrees and above was once again during a period of slow ice growth (over the weekend). 

 The actual temperature reported today has dropped below 260K for the first time at 258.0K. This translates to an average of -15C though still about 4C above the 1970 - 2000 average.

So we are just at the start of the new wetaher regime....... where does it go next?

MIA 

 

NW North America seems destined to be the colder part relative to average in north hemisphere.. Europe always milder!

[Katrine Basso]

The Latest Asia and Europe snow cover map chart from the U.S. NATIONAL ICE CENTRE:

 

[Midlands Ice Age]

Latest NIC NH snow and ice chart shows impressive snow gains and progressing into Scandanavia as well as the USA,and the ice extent gains nearing 200K for the second day running....

Back later when details are available,

 

 

MIA

Edited October 26, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[Don]

4 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Latest NIC NH snow and ice chart shows impressive snow gains and progressing into Scandanavia as well as the USA,and the ice extent gains nearing 200K for the second day running....

Back later when details are available,

 

 

MIA

Nice to see a more meaningful cover over Scandinavia now.

[Midlands Ice Age]

Back with a more detailed report .....as promised.

Firstly, I will talk about the general atmospheric change which occured last weekend.

This has removed the threat of a strong vortex, and instead is setting up a twin centered Arctic high. This is pushing the low pressure areas further and further south, and taking the snow with them.

    

This is firstly allowing the temperatures to drop steadily in the clear Arctic nights, and secondly also as the low pressure areas are filling over the major continents, and therefore not allowing the warm air to break back into the Arctic, 

These predicted conditions, after the initial settling in, changing period over the weekend, are very good for both the snow and sea ice. The threat of milder air breaking into the Arctic from the Bering Seas seems, for now, to have gone away as the low there has aligned more north and south.

Arctic temperatures have been falling more slowly in the last 2 days after a large drop at the weekend, this again appears to  almost have had an inverse relationship with the sea ice extent.  I expect more falls in the temperature now that the high pressure is dominating again.

  

Temperatures are now falling more widely to around -30C (extending out from Greenland) and will be approaching -45C actually on the plateau, and with more clear weather forecast for the next 5 0r 6 days at least, I suspect that we will see average temperatures to drop further towards -20C from their current average of about -15C.   (see above).

Snow fall has been quite expansive in both N America (moving south) and over Russia (moving west).   As i    have  shown in the previous post it has now reached Northern Scandinavia all the way from Siberia.

It really does qualify as a quick end of October expansion of NH snowfall.

Sea ice  extent has, after its slight hiatus at the weekend, really started to expand very quickly,with +185K Km2 added yesterday and 269K Km2 added today.

Masie shows that currently overall we are staying about 200K Km2 behind last year but still better than nearly all of the years since 2010.

       and    extent     

The last 2 days have seen the ice start to grow over the whole Arctic, Even Chuckci (+2K) and especially the ESS(+65K) is showing some (for me) unforecast growth as the threat of the mild easterlies diminish (see above).

The big gainer has been Beaufort (+59K) - which now shows signs of filling in with the CAA (+78K) moving quickly ahead.

As I suggested Laptev (+134K) is now rapidly infillling all the open waters, though next door, Kara (+21K) is also  slower to take off. Barents (+8K), is similarly placed witk  the ice pack still struggling to get to the Severnya Islands.

All in all, the new weather  conditions look as if they will see some rapid increases in sea ice extent.

 The 2 'dips' we have seen in the last 2 weeks seem to have been caused by a temporary weather breakdown followed by the reset of this weekend.

Stability (like last year) seems to be better for the ice extent.

MIA

  

   

Edited October 26, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[Turnedoutniceagain]

A good dumping across Scandinavia over the last 48hrs 

 

 

 

 

[Midlands Ice Age]

1 hour ago, Turnedoutniceagain said:

A good dumping across Scandinavia over the last 48hrs 

 

 

 

 

Look at the comparison of today with 7 days ago...

    

I expect a huge increase in sea ice extent later...

MIA

[Don]

3 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Look at the comparison of today with 7 days ago...

This is what we needed to see with advances into Scandinavia, so good news.

[Midlands Ice Age]

Must be all the talk of Scandinavia,but I have been humming 'Its beginning to look a lot like....' a lot today.

Masie updated and again sees all the expected Arctic Sea areas with increases,  within the circle.

Sea extent increase sees another double century increase , (+238K)  and  up to over 8M Km2  total now) , with particular emphasis on Beaufort (+25K}, ESS (+37K), - which has now has gone past Wrangle island again - ,  Laptev (+46K) and for the first time really Kara (+59k) with extensive ice developing along the coast almost into Archangel.  Barents is slowly gaining (+4K), but the pack is finding it hard going, although the CAB keeps ticking on up.(+4K today).

In the 'western' sea areas Greenland (+27K) and Baffin (+24K) seem to indicate that Greenland is cooling quite nicely.

The CAA is nearing being full now (+45K),  and Hudson Bay is starting its ice up (+4K), about 3 days later than average. 

Temperatures are falling a bit more slowly again now -

 

As a rider to my obsevation of high icing comes when temps stop falling, I just wonder if the Latent heat of Fusion could be  putting heat out into  the lower atmosphere when rapid icing is taking place????

All the above reports  on extent (and my normal report) are based upon the NSIDC Masie model.

The ASIF tend to use JAXA  for their 'extent' analysis,but use the NSIDC for 'area'.

Today Jaxa has recorded a 3rd highest this century sea ice extent gain of (+227K Km2).  Their graph showing short term (1 month) daily changes shows the increase quite nicely - (thanks to the ASIF)

      

and more clearly shows the 2 'dips' - caused by the changes in the atmospheric wetaher patterns I have been reporting recently, and also where we stand (9th) in the last 16 years..

All for today as the boss has called me for dinner... Chicken and Prawn Risptto judging by the lovely smell coming through.

 MIA 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[claret047]

Hello Dave (MIA) Thanks for the update. Whilst enjoying your chicken and prawns were you by any chance watching the BBC Evening news? It has just shown an item on global warming and featured film form Svalbard with bears on rocks instead of ice floes. Is that area as dire as the feature claims or is it sensationalism? Reading you regular updates it would appear the ice gain and snow cover is generally going well this year and you predict it is going to get a whole lot better next week with more favourable conditions prevailing. 

Kind Regards

Dave

[Midlands Ice Age]

1 hour ago, claret047 said:

Hello Dave (MIA) Thanks for the update. Whilst enjoying your chicken and prawns were you by any chance watching the BBC Evening news? It has just shown an item on global warming and featured film form Svalbard with bears on rocks instead of ice floes. Is that area as dire as the feature claims or is it sensationalism? Reading you regular updates it would appear the ice gain and snow cover is generally going well this year and you predict it is going to get a whole lot better next week with more favourable conditions prevailing. 

Kind Regards

Dave

Didn't see the BBC news (I do not watch it much these days). They will have at least one major item on CC each day on the lead up to The CC Conference in the Middle East (Egypt?) next month. Exactly as they did for the Glasgow Conference, and the one in Kitzbuhel before that. Their editorial staff will have committed to it. 

Keeping the CC aspects out of this.....

It is true that Svalbard is currently devoid of sea ice and that the polar bears will collect and await the ice arriving. 

This has been true for probably 7 or 8 years in the last 10,  at this particular time of year. It has also been reported (and checked) from Churchall in Hudson Bay, where they do 'tagging' and identify and know many individual animals,  but they seem now to think it is a fairly natural occurence, and the animals (and more importantly the cubs) are in good  condition.

If the BBC were to present current charts of the ice flows and extents in the context of the last 10 years along with the information they give,  I would be more impressed. 

Also, please remember that this same information was also reported for Wrangel Island 2 weeks back by David Att, and I have no doubt that the bears will also be moving out onto the ice shortly (also in Svalbard )  as they have from Wrangel Island. 

Perhaps of interest is that the number of polar bears in the NH, according to a recent withheld  (by the BBC)  survey, has been  increasing.

The sea ice this year is behaving in a very similar way it has done each year for the last 10 years. Possibly even slightly better.

However, no more on this subject from me on here,  as I promise that I will still just report the current snow and ice data, and try to put it into into context of the last 10 years. and the relationship with the current weather conditions.

 

MIA

Edited October 27, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[saintkip]

I saw the BBC report and was annoyed by how dumb downed it is, apparently the sea around Svalbard is getting much Hotter, that’s one word no one uses when describing the sea around the artic circle. Sensationalist.

[johncam]

The sea around Svalbard is getting a lot warmer , hence the lack of sea ice in the last twenty years ir so and any ice that does form is thin and doesn't last long 

[saintkip]

14 minutes ago, johncam said:

The sea around Svalbard is getting a lot warmer , hence the lack of sea ice in the last twenty years ir so and any ice that does form is thin and doesn't last long 

I’d say less cold

[Midlands Ice Age]

1 hour ago, saintkip said:

I saw the BBC report and was annoyed by how dumb downed it is, apparently the sea around Svalbard is getting much Hotter, that’s one word no one uses when describing the sea around the artic circle. Sensationalist.

I have been looking into this, and I watched the 10:00 BBC news where the item  followed on from the top news item (again CC related)..

Weather in the video was warm. shirt sleeves, and sunny. No snow on the mountains in the background, and mountain stream flourishing on one shot of the mountains.     Bears laying about on the rocks on the sea shore.

Todays webcam shows snow down to sea level. Current  temps are supposd to be max -2C and min -8C, (typical  during October), according to the CR 1979 -2000 baseline.

According to CR the current temps are almost spot on the average, for most of Svalbard. Currently the  temp is -5C according to the webcam site in the main town of Longyearbyen at sea level.

          Longyearbyen

The sun dips below the horizon for 5months starting on Oct 28th (tomorrow)!!!!!. The above is from the webcam and taken at about 15:00 hrs today.

 So the interview was recorded with the scientist some while  ago (1 month minimum), when possibly the sst's were a lot higher than they are now or might be expected to be, 

C.R. SST's for today -

From the above SST actual temperature map (above) the current sea temperature on the south of the island is about 2C, and to the east, it is about 0.5C. The north of the island does appear to have a temperature of about 1C due to the warmish current which usually runs over the top of the island. 

So conditions up there today are nothing like the BBC visuals, with snow and bitter winds now taking over on land.

For what it is worth I think sea ice will be forming around  Svalbard in about 7 days time (my guess) , which strangely enough, is just about the recent average. So the polar bears  will soon be happily hunting out on the ice, unaware of their top casting on BBC news!. 

Also for further information - the last 2 years has seen the ice pack extend some 200 miles south of Svalbard to the aptly named Bear Isles. Perhaps the bears we saw might emigrate to these islands shortly?   This opportunity had not happened for them for about 6 years previously? 

I do wish the BBC would give all the background information.

MIA    

 

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[Midlands Ice Age]

A further strong push for the snow in Russia (falling further south in Central Russia and also attempting a link with the Scandanavian falls), together with extensive falls to the east of Hudson Bay, (but loses some snow in Central USA) as the whole of North America turns somewhat colder.

Sea ice increases are at more normal levels.

 . 
 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[johncam]

Oh for sea ice growth like it used to 

 

Think the Barents sea has lost the most sea ice growth in winter compared to other areas

[damianslaw]

7 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

A further strong push for the snow in Russia (falling further south in Central Russia and also attempting a link with the Scandanavian falls), together with extensive falls to the east of Hudson Bay, (but loses some snow in Central USA) as the whole of North America turns somewhat colder.

Sea ice increases are at more normal levels.

 . 
 

Good to see snow build in scandi, a better sign for potential wintry fayre here than snow building south througg central russia.. 2009 delivered a similiar pattern I recall. 

[Midlands Ice Age]

Masie has just updated for sea ice extent.

Much to my delight and surprise it still managed a double century increase of (+201K) to bring this year within sight (spitting distance really) of 2021 again - since the growth rates superficially appear to be so similar. 

So, I got to wonder whether the are many differences, compared to last year, as its also worth a 'review' on day 300 of the year -

The total extent as we can see is very similar at 8224K Km2 -  just (-65K) down overall.

By this time last year we can see that the ESS was full, whereas this year  we are still 100K short.  Laptev is just about iced up in both years.

Kara, however, was about 280K more last year. Whereas next door, Barents  (and relevent to the posts above) is only about 14K less this year.

So overall, the Russian coastline is in total about (-400K) short of last year.

Moving further around Greenland is about (+ 80K) above last years, whllst Bafffin (+160K) has steamed ahead this year.

 The really surprising area though is the CAA, which is about (+240K) ahead. It is however nearly full now having about only (100K) left to finish icing over. Next door, Hudson Bay is at a very similar value to last year (+10K), with still the whole bay to move into.

The last major areas are the CAB (central Arctic) which at 3179K Km2 is (surprisingly to me, despite the claimed slow encroachment of Svarlbard)  better by about (+20K) this year, and Beaufort (up now by +60K this year). This leaves the Chuckchi to balance the books at (-160K) still struggling after the Chuckchi deep depression of 14 days ago, which  ripped the newly formed ice apart..

So overall this year has more clear waters inside the Arctic circle left to ice over. It, however,  will not have the benefit of much more ice in the CAA to fill in.

Hope the above make sense and is understandable.!!.

The net of the above is that with more open water left within the Arctic itself to ice over, we may  well see this year overtake last year, but the ultimate extent outcome will depend upon how the cold arctic temperatures  leak out of the arctic itself when we really hit winter.

Some numbers from today worth a mention are Beaufort and the ESS (both -4K), and Chuchchi (+37K), now well past the previous (according to DA) doomed island of Wrangel. Laptev (+38K) and now full steam-ahead is Kara (+42K). (see below for a map). Barents (+8K) is now gaining momentum, and Greenland(+22K)  just keeps rolling along. Round the other side of Greenland.  Baffin (+22K) and the CAA (+16K) continue to ice over.

 

Perhaps the most intersting areas are the smaller ones  Hudson (+8K)  and Bering (+7K) both showed fast icing along the coasts promising more to come.  In addition Cooke Inlet saw its first ice of the season (backing around from the Bering icing), and the SOO (+4K) suddenly found its first coastal icing in China. 

MIA

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[johncam]

European sector going to suffer if latest model charts come off mostly s to se winds and temps above freezing , typical 

[Seasonal Trim]

Used to love this thread in my early days on this forum. Until I realised that snows progress across Europe doesn't matter a jot to what happens on our tiny Island of the edge of the Atlantic.

Seen a fast growth, slow growth, growth right up to the border of France and growth in every direction. 

But nothing that indicates whether we're gonna get anything for us.

Such a shame.