Arctic still broken: 50 degrees above average at North Pole

During the warmest fall on record in Minnesota, I wrote that the Arctic is broken noting the lack of cold air upstream of Minnesota. After our first real cold shot of winter, temperatures have returned to warmer than average levels across Minnesota this week.

A check of Arctic temperatures this week shows "off the charts warmth" once again. Temperatures in the Arctic are literally off the scale, and may approach 50 degrees warmer than average.

That's nearly above the thawing point, on the shortest day of the year where we live and in total darkness in the Arctic.

So what's going on in the Arctic this year?

Here's are some clips with interesting perspective from Jason Samenow at Capital Weather Gang.

It’s not normal, and it’s happening again.

For the second year in a row in late December and for the second time in as many months, temperatures in the high Arctic will be freakishly high compared to normal.

Computer models project that on Thursday, three days before Christmas, the temperature near the North Pole will be an astronomical 40-50 degrees warmer-than-normal and approaching 32 degrees, the melting point.

The warmth will be drawn into the Arctic by a powerhouse storm east of Greenland. The European weather model estimates its lowest pressure will be around 945 millibars, which is comparable to many category 3 hurricanes.

“That’s pretty intense,” said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with WeatherBell Analytics.

Zachary Labe, a doctoral student researching the Arctic at the University of California-Irvine, said that the lack of ice in this region has allowed ocean temperatures to warm to levels well above normal.

“The warm ocean acts as a buffer to keep the air temperatures from getting colder,” Labe said.

Air temperatures in the Arctic above 80 degrees north (latitude) have been much warmer than normal since roughly September.

A study published in the journal Nature on Dec. 15 said these events have happened once or twice a decade going to back to the 1950s.

While it’s premature to say if these events are becoming more frequent, the intensity of the warm air reaching the Arctic is almost certainly increasing.

“[T]he warmest midwinter temperatures at the North Pole have been increasing at a rate that is twice as large as that for mean midwinter temperatures at the pole,” the Nature study said. “It is argued that this enhanced trend is consistent with the loss of winter sea ice from the Nordic Seas that moves the reservoir of warm air over this region northwards making it easier for weather systems to transport this heat polewards.”

Temperatures look milder than average overall for Minnesota for the next two weeks. But I'm watching bitterly cold air build in Siberia once again.

It's likely just a matter of time until the Siberian Express returns to Minnesota in January.

Stay tuned.