Thanks for the maps and discussion of this decadal trends of weather in the Arctic. I was shocked yesterday to see maps showing temperature anomalies for December 25. 2023 was 10-25 C warmer than average over a large area of eastern Canada. That was only one day, but it seems like a huge swing in temperature for the winter. The map had slightly lower temperature than average in southern Alaska, but the northern hemisphere was way warmer than average overall.
Indeed. Some spots in southwest Alaska had the coldest Christmas in more than 60 years.
As a general rule at non-marine climate at higher latitudes tend to have high variability in the cold season, and especially in the no/low solar heating time of year. In parts of Interior Alaska the standard deviation of daily average temperature late December into January is close to 20ºF.
Thanks for the maps and discussion of this decadal trends of weather in the Arctic. I was shocked yesterday to see maps showing temperature anomalies for December 25. 2023 was 10-25 C warmer than average over a large area of eastern Canada. That was only one day, but it seems like a huge swing in temperature for the winter. The map had slightly lower temperature than average in southern Alaska, but the northern hemisphere was way warmer than average overall.
Indeed. Some spots in southwest Alaska had the coldest Christmas in more than 60 years.
As a general rule at non-marine climate at higher latitudes tend to have high variability in the cold season, and especially in the no/low solar heating time of year. In parts of Interior Alaska the standard deviation of daily average temperature late December into January is close to 20ºF.