bluewave

Zack Labe created a great chart showing the monthly Arctic temperature rankings. The last 3 Octobers were the warmest on record for the Arctic. Ranking of #Arctic air temperatures by month over the satellite era - now updated through October 2018 + Ranks (colors): 1=warmest (red), 40=coldest (blue) + Download/Info: sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-t…pic.twitter.com/bwxR7kGKnr 9:50 PM - 8 Nov 2018

Record low #Arctic sea ice area continues around Svalbard (since at least 1967 - @Istjenesten charts). Temperatures at Longyearbyen (~78°N latitude) have been 6.8°C above average in last 30 days. + Weather data:yr.no/place/Norway/S… … + Sea ice data: polarview.met.nopic.twitter.com/G41EuQJR3p 12:23 PM - 12 Nov 2018

October sea ice extent in the Arctic ranks third lowest in satellite record. Extent remains especially low on the Atlantic side of the Arctic in the Barents and Laptev Seas, which may relate to the "Atlantification" of the Arctic Ocean.nsidc.org/arcticseaicene… pic.twitter.com/erSCCGlBkC 9:03 AM - 6 Nov 2018 https://www.carbonbrief.org/atlantification-arctic-sea-tipping-towards-new-climate-regime Rising temperatures and declining sea ice are driving a “rapid climate shift” in the Arctic’s Barents Sea, a new study says. The research, published in Nature Climate Change, finds that warming conditions and decreasing sea ice volume “may soon” see the Barents Sea complete a transition from cold, fresh Arctic waters to a warm, salty Atlantic regime. If current trends continue, the transition could occur “around 2040”, the lead author tells Carbon Brief. This would have “unknown consequences” for the wider ecosystem and commercial fishing, the study warns.

2018 was the 2nd warmest October on record for the Arctic behind 2016.

Updated for November 11-2/3. ...Orange County... Monroe 4.96 800 AM 11/03 Trained Spotter ...Passaic County... 1 NE Wanaque 4.36 804 AM 11/03 AWS ...Westchester County... Shrub Oak 3.10 630 AM 11/03 Co-Op Observer

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/alaska-sees-usually-warm-weather-during-fall/ Alaska lawns still green with unusually warm fall weather Originally published October 22, 2018 at 10:12 pm Updated October 23, 2018 at 8:07 am ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska’s early fall has been unusually warm as a massive high-pressure system camped out around the state. The warmer weather has allowed lawns to stay green in Anchorage and for farmers to continue harvesting crops in Palmer during a month when the state typically begins to freeze, the Anchorage Daily News reported Sunday. The lack of typical snow and subfreezing temperatures is unsettling to some. The village of Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island had no ice, weeks into October. “It’s not freezing up,” said Delbert Pungowiyi, Savoonga tribal president. “Normally, we’d be able to cross the rivers and lakes.” Climatologist Rick Thoman said most of the state is “running way above normal” this month. Sea-surface temperatures in Chukchi and Bering seas are also “exceptionally warm,” he said. Utqiagvik was 9 degrees above normal for the first half of the month, and Nome was 13 degrees above normal. Anchorage is setting record high temperatures and has passed the previous record for latest freeze of the year. The Fairbanks area had less than an inch of snow last week, marking the latest snowfall on record, according to the National Weather Service. Fairbanks usually gets about 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow in October. UPDATE: Stations with a colder low temperature than Anchorage, Alaska, through October 19th (≤37°F). Since Sept 1, Anchorage has set 14 daily high temp records and 10 warm low temp records. #MakeItStop @AlaskaWx@DaveSnider pic.twitter.com/Mnu6ESYfub 6:05 PM - 20 Oct 2018 A few years ago @Climatologist49 and I created an index to track the Alaska temp departures using 25 locations around the state. Here's the daily average temp dept from normal & the index since June 01. Current warm streak is the greatest since Apr-May 2016. #akwx @wxjerdman pic.twitter.com/yUPl5sQZwO 9:35 AM - 20 Oct 2018

Updated for the 3.94 at Sayville. Sayville 3.94 700 AM 10/12 CoCoRaHS

Record warmth continues with nearly no sea ice gains the last few days. The delayed freeze up is letting 2018 get closer to 2nd lowest extent for early October set in 2007.

This current Arctic temperature spike is now easily the warmest on record for the early part of October. Another example of Arctic amplification going off the rails. http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/ Rick Thoman @ AlaskaWx Chukchi Sea ice extent from the @NSIDC passive microwave data has fallen over the past several days and as of October 05 is the third lowest since 1979: only 2007 and 2012 were lower. #Arctic #akwx #seaice @Climatologist49@ZLabe @CinderBDT907 pic.twitter.com/aZiqV4FWuT 8:54 AM - 6 Oct 2018

Updated for the areas of Fairfield County that picked up over 3.00" with the storms yesterday. ...Fairfield County... 2 NE Fairfield 3.95 703 AM 10/03 CoCoRaHS 2 ENE Fairfield 3.82 815 AM 10/03 CWOP 5 SE Bedford 3.82 700 AM 10/03 CoCoRaHS Stamford 3.75 600 AM 10/03 Trained Spotter Darien 3.65 653 AM 10/03 Social Media 2 NW Darien 3.65 700 AM 10/03 CoCoRaHS 3 NNW Norwalk 3.57 700 AM 10/03 CoCoRaHS 4 NNW New Canaan 3.54 630 AM 10/03 CoCoRaHS 2 S New Canaan 3.35 615 AM 10/03 CoCoRaHS 1 WNW Westport 3.30 815 AM 10/03 CWOP

The continuing record warmth is allowing the 2018 extent to edge closer to October 2007 and 2012.

Updated for September 2018. 9..2018....EWR...7....LGA...6...JFK.....8....BDR..6...ISP.....3

Very close to record warm temperatures around the North Pole for the end of September. http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures/

This was the latest minimum so far on record tied with 1997. But the extent was much higher that year. The CPC issued an historic forecast for the the NW Alaska region due to the record warmth there. https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/arctic-sea-ice-2018-minimum-extent Arctic sea ice has likely reached its minimum extent for the year, at 4.59 million square kilometers (1.77 million square miles) on September 19 and 23, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The 2018 minimum ties with 2008 and 2010 as the sixth lowest in the nearly 40-year satellite record. September 23 is the latest day in the year the Arctic sea minimum has occurred in the satellite record—observed this year and in 1997. https://www.arctictoday.com/open-warm-waters-off-arctic-alaska-spark-bold-forecast-warm-october/ The lack of sea ice off Alaska and the persistence of warm temperatures in the open waters there have set up an unusual weather situation — a near-certain forecast of significantly higher-than-normal temperatures for northwestern Alaska. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts and 85 percent chance that northwestern Alaska will have temperatures significantly warmer than normal in October. That is the “first time in recorded history” that the Climate Prediction Center has issued a probability above 80 percent, said Rick Thoman, climate science and services manager for the National Weather Service in Alaska. “That is a really bold forecast, but all the pieces are in place,” he said at his monthly Alaska climate outlook briefing, held on Friday. Sea-surface temperatures “are about as warm as they’ve ever been” in that region, hitting levels up to 4 degrees Celsius above normal in the northern Bering Sea and southern Chukchi Sea. For fall and early winter, all of Alaska is expected to have weather that is both significantly warmer and significantly wetter than normal, according to the Climate Prediction Center forecast. The wetter-than-normal conditions are part of a clear pattern in place since at least 2003 that is linked to sea-ice retreat, Thoman said. The Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for a wetter-than normal early winter is influenced by an expected El Nino weather pattern in the North Pacific Ocean. Thoman, a climate-science fixture in Alaska, is retiring from the National Weather Service this month and moving to the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, a NOAA-funded program headquartered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

This delayed freeze-up continues to be very impressive. The record ridging and warmth dropped the extent to the 3rd lowest on record behind 2012 and 2007 for 9-26.

Looks like a new positive 500 mb height record for this time of year over that region.

Updated for some of the highest amounts across the area on 9-25-18. 9-2-18...Hamden, CT....8.51...Trumbull, CT....7.32...White Plains, NY....4.41...Totowa, NJ....7.44....Bayonne, NJ...4.77...Setauket, NY...4.53.

One of the latest Arctic sea ice minimum extents on record. As of 9-23, the NSIDC extent is still holding at 4.594 million sq km. Record warm SST's for this time of year over the Chukchi Sea.

In a decade defined by extremes, October since 2010 really stands out. 2020 Rare October Ice Storm in Oklahoma New October monthly record snowfall in Great Falls Montana and Minneapolis, MN New October record for the strongest wind gust at Albany with another unusually strong late season Northeast severe thunderstorm event https://nwschat.weather.gov/p.php?pid=202010080712-KALY-SXUS71-RERALB 2019 New October Record Low Pressures in New England https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/10/17/powerful-weather-bomb-socks-new-england-with-wind-gusts-mph-knocking-out-power-more-than-half-million/ Record Early Season Snows For Upper Rockies And Plains https://weather.com/storms/winter/news/2019-10-14-record-snowiest-start-season-october-northern-rockies-plains 2018 https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/hurricane-michael-upgraded-to-category-5-at-time-of-us-landfall Hurricane Michael Was the Third Most Intense Continental U.S. Landfall on Record, an Unprecedented Location for a Category 5 Landfall https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2018-10-10-hurricane-michael-cat4-landfall-unprecedented-location Pennsylvania Just Had Its Record October Tornado Outbreak, And It Was Its Most Tornadic Day in Over 20 Years https://weather.com/storms/tornado/news/2018-10-04-pennsylvania-record-october-tornado-outbreak 2017 Northeast Storm Undergoes Bombogenesis, Bringing 70+ MPH Gusts, Almost 350 Reports of Wind Damage, Flooding https://weather.com/forecast/regional/news/2017-10-30-northeast-storm-damaging-winds-flooding 2016 Hurricane Matthew Shatters Records https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-matthew-records-notables-2016 https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-matthew-bahamas-florida-georgia-carolinas 2015 The Historic South Carolina Floods of October 1–5, 2015 https://www.weather.gov/media/publications/assessments/SCFlooding_072216_Signed_Final.pdf 2014 Early Snow on the Great Smokies https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/84658/early-snow-on-the-great-smokies 2013 October 3-5, 2013 Historic Blizzard https://www.weather.gov/unr/2013-10-03_05 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/tornadoes/201310 2012 On the Impact Angle of Hurricane Sandy’s New Jersey Landfall https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~sobel/Papers/Hall_Sobel_GRL_resubmitted_revised.pdf 2011 Rare October snowstorm hammers Northeast U.S. https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/rare-october-snowstorm-hammers-northeast-us.html 2010 The Historic Storm of 24-26 October 2010 http://cms.met.psu.edu/sref/severe/2010/25Oct2010.pdf

Yeah, the 2017 Arctic Report Card showed how the loss of multiyear ice created a new normal over the last decade.

This would probably have been a minimum closer to 7 million sq km in a pre 2007 Arctic world. Zack Labe posted a great chart on how low the pressures were over the Arctic the last two summers. Lowest pressures since the 1990's. But extents well below those levels. Another summer of predominately cyclonic (low pressure) conditions over the#Arctic polar cap (>65°N) --> cloudy and "cool" pic.twitter.com/7LySJd5pqN 8:46 PM - 18 Sep 2018

They will probably issue the official annual minimum extent in the next few days. I used the latest daily reading from the chart below.

Getting very close to the NSIDC annual minimum extent. Most recent update was at 4.601 million sq km. A minimum in the 4 to 5 million sq km range has been typical for the new post 2007 Arctic. 4 to 5 million sq km minimums 2018 2017 2016 2015 2011 2010 2008 2007 Below 4 million sq km 2012 Slightly above 5 million sq km 2014 2013 2009

Each melt season seems to confirm that an important shift occurred around 2007. NSIDC is currently at 4.992million sq km for extent and slowly falling. Most of the seasons since 2007 had a daily low minimum extent between 4 and 5 million sq km. Only 2009, 2013, and 2014 managed to stay a little above 5 million sq km. But even those 3 highest years couldn't get back to pre 2007 ice levels near or above 6 million sq km when the Arctic was colder.

Updated for August 2018. 8...2018...EWR...5....NYC...9...LGA....2....JFK...5...BDR....2.....ISP....4