ORH_wxman

2010 (not listed on the graph) was actually the leader right now....but then it stalled starting tomorrow. But I think this year def has a better chance than 2010 since the weather forecast remains favorable for big ice losses over the next week.

I think "ice-free" has been defined as less than a million sq km of ice extent. I'm not sure if blue ocean event is the same thing but I'd assume it is. 100% ice free will never happen in this century because there will always be some residual ice clinging to northern Greenland or chunks of ice breaking off the Greenland glaciers.

The chance of a blue ocean event this year is 0%.

2019 is still in the running, but will need a strong finish to June: 2016: +70k 2012: -190k 2010: -300k 2007: +5k You can see how 2010 was actually running ahead of 2012 here for melting, but it then stalled near the end of the month and it continued into early July....putting an end to any chance of a nuclear finish like 2012 had. The guidance this year has a very impressive dipole to finish the month of June...so we might have a legit shot here. The big question will be if we can turn that into a big blocking high over the CAB or if it retreats more to the Asian side and becomes a reverse dipole, which would probably put an end to our chances at a record....the guidance is kind of split on that idea for the longer term. This melt season might finally have some drama after the colder early summers we've seen in recent years.

Area already takes into account lower concentration. So if the pack is very fragmented, we will get lower area readings. I don't see any clear evidence why we should treat area as different than we normally do. This year is already quite low on area, so it isn't like area is showing something drastically different than what we'd expect given the very warm conditions thus far. If we get very hostile weather from here on out, we could still see a new record low this year. Right now, I'd bet against it, and settle on something in the top 3 or 4 instead. But there is still time for things to change.

The thing is....NSIDC area is measured by SSMI/S and that particular satellite gets "tricked" by melt ponds into thinking it is water. It's been measuring like this for decades so we have a consistent database. So if we are a few hundred thousand sq km behind 2012 on this measurement, it's likely because we have less melt ponding than that year. Since melt ponding in June is the best predictor of final extent/area, we closely monitor the SSMI/S area numbers.

Area is basically in a dead heat with 2016 right now. We'll see if it can pull ahead before the end of the month. Extent is harder to predict. It's a lot easier to predict final area. Extent obviously has the nuances of compaction...take 2015 vs 2010 for example. 2015 finished with greater area but far less extent since 2015 had an epic compaction occur in August/early September. That's probably why they missed the extent prediction the most of any of their forecasts. They correctly saw that there would likely be more ice area than some other years at the minimum but had no way of knowing how compacted it would be.

This is in line with area numbers...which is a proxy for melt ponds.

Here's the current breakdown of how other years compare to 2019 right now......i.e, 2018 had 370k sq km more ice than 2019 at this point. 2018: +370k 2017: +300k 2016: -20k 2015: +170k 2014: +390k 2013: +350k 2012: -280k 2011: +70k 2010: +50k 2009: +1.1 million 2008: +450k 2007: -20k What sticks out here is how closely bunched 2019 is with 2016, 2011, 2010, and 2007 (and how much more ice 2009 had at this point than the others). Those are big melt years, so this one is on track for a big year. But we're still clearly lagging 2012 and that gap probably will need to be closed significantly before the end of the month to have a chance at a new record. 2012 loses about 1.2 million sq km of area between now and 6/30, so we're gonna need to lose more than that....which is hard to do. Only 2010 and 2007 lost more between 6/19 and the end of the month than 2012 did. The pattern beyond D6-7 on the euro shows a very hostile setup for the ice....I think we'll need this to verify in order to keep within striking distance of 2012.

Area is currently about 300k behind 2012 right now. Still within striking distance but it needs to close the gap soon as 2012 goes cliff-diving again soon. We're running about 100k ahead of 2007 and nearly tied with 2016. So this year is definitely in that top 3-ish zone right now. I'm a bit skeptical of it keeping pace with 2012 looking at the medium range forecast...but the long range euro tries to go nuclear, so if that happened, then we'd have a chance. But I try and not get sucked into anything beyond D5-6 in the Arctic.

Need to see the arctic basin as a whole if we want data that predicts the future this summer...so include ESS/Laptev/Beaufort and Chukchi in those numbers....you'll see that 2019 is 3rd lowest if we do that, But there's been a recent slowdown in area loss that has seen it fall behind 2012...and it needs breathtaking losses to keep up with 2012 over the next 7-10 days. I don;'t see it happening. Today did see an acceleration again, so we'll see if that is the start of a June Cliff or not. The weather pattern doesn't look very conductive for monster losses. It looks like the Laptev and ESS could take a beating for several days, but then a vortex overtakes the arctic basin again.

Area is beginning to stall quite noticeably the last 3-4 days. 2012 was starting to go absolutely nuclear at this point. Starting to become skeptical of a record. We'll need that trend to reverse sharply in the second half of the month.

It was pretty obvious we weren't getting a 1995 minimum last year. The area data near the end of June did not support anything remotely close to that. I will post my prediction again this year. Here is last year's prediction: https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/48618-arctic-sea-ice-extent-area-and-volume/?do=findComment&comment=4953872

We'll have a better idea soon....the next 3 weeks will basically decide if a new record is possible in September. This is definitely our best shot since 2016....2016 just didn't quite have the melt ponding that 2012 did in June, so the momentum wasn't able to carry us to a new record. The last two years (2017 and 2018) haven't even been close. We knew those seasons would be pedestrian in the post-2007 sense by the end of June.

Looks like Cryosat2 is done scanning for the season....based on the prelim results this year, it looks like the Beaufort, Chukchi, and western ESS are thicker than last year, but the eastern ESS and parts of Laptev are thinner.

Still about another month to go before max volume....but February data is in and we're currently 7th lowest volume on record....between 2013 and 2014 right now. Spring volume is more predictive than extent/area this early, but it's still not nearly as good as area in the month of June. As an example, the highest volume since 2009 in spring was 2015 and that year had poor weather in summer bring it lower than many other years that were lower in the spring. We're not that far above 2012 either, and that year was by far the lowest on record by the time we got to September. Graph courtesy of user wipneus at arctic sea ice forum This is an anomaly graph, not a raw value graph

Yeah this stuff fell so fast and it also didn't have massive ratios....they were good, maybe 15 to 1, but not jspin or LES ratios. It really didn't compact until the snow was almost stopped...and even then, it took a good hour to really get noticeable. I had the snow stick stuck in the same spot the entire time once I went out to start cleaning up and it didn't dip below 16" until maybe 9-930am.

Right before this, it was also in Winthrop, but it was at least further north more on land and not at a treatment plant in the middle of the atlantic ocean.

Yeah and there's even spots in Cumberland that get over 500 feet I think....really variable town...but most live down in the 100-250 foot range

Did you tell them you are up on a 350 foot hill? That will matter too in a storm like this where you probably were closer to 30F instead of 31-32F like it might be down near the blackstone river.

Correct....

Red marks the spot....

This map looks very similar to a lot of short term mesoscale guidance yesterday....they did very well once inside of about 18 hours.

Almost 17 inches in Holliston

If you start on this page, I post a radar shot probably every 10-15 min for the next 3-4 pages. You can see the progression. https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/52144-the-little-storm-that-could-march-34/?page=13