Ice extent grows at both Poles (and a cold start to winter here?)October 20th, 2013 at 3:44 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
Click on the graphs to enlarge. The graph on the left is the current Arctic ice extent and the graph on the right is the current Antarctic ice extent. An update on global ice from Paul Homewood: “Antarctic sea ice has set another record for maximum extent, beating the previous record of 19.513 million sq km, set on 21st September this year. What makes the new record so astonishing is that it was set in October. Climatologically, the maximum extent is reached on 22nd September, so it is most unusual for the ice still to be growing. At the 18th October, extent is still running at 998,000 sq km above normal. With the Arctic ice running at 728,000sq km below normal, this means that global sea ice is 270,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 norm.” The Arctic ice extent today is within one standard deviation, while the Antarctic ice extent is more than two standard deviations from average. Both poles have seen substantial increases in ice extent in the past year.
Here’s a good discussion from Jeff Lutz, Meteorologist at NWS Gaylord (Saturday) that I think is worth reading: “I was working the long term desk today, and looked at the upcoming week. Wow, is it beginning to look cold. If you read this previous post, I told how the re-curving of a typhoon in the western Pacific Ocean will lead to colder weather here. The typhoon I was talking about is beginning to have its effects felt here in Michigan by Monday night. There is another Super Typhoon that is taking the same basic track as the first. This means that we are going into a below average period for temperatures, and my guess, an above normal precipitation period. The thing is that one model, The European Model, which has been doing the best of the long range models, came in with an even colder temperature at 850 mb ( about 5000 ft mean sea level) today. The temperature was cold enough that we may not just see a mix of rain and snow, but all snow, and an accumulation at that. The other issue is that there has been some research to suggest that the patterns that set up in the middle to the end of the fall, determines the repeat of the pattern throughout the winter. This could mean that we could be seeing a colder, snowier pattern, until January, when the Lakes freeze (maybe).”
The European model overnight run has the 850 mb temperature for next Friday AM in Grand Rapids at -7.2C with surface temperatures in the upper 20s! With the Lake Michigan water temperature at 60F, this could mean accumulating snow (and perhaps a good deal of accumulating snow in some areas downwind from the Great Lakes) and possibly even slippery spots on the roads if it snows hard enough at times. We’re already getting sleet (and snow in the higher elevations of the U.P. and northern Lower Michigan) mixing in tonight with 850 mb temperatures of around -2C. On the European model G.R. goes to -4C at 850 mb by Monday evening and stays below -4C until next Saturday! This’ll be a good week to watch the latest forecasts on WOOD-TV and here on the blog.