Mid-winter melt blows through Canada’s High Arctic

This visualization of air temperatures shows an especially strong Arctic air vortex, which has pulled cold air down over Nunavut’s Kivalliq region and drawn warm air up from the south to the North Pole. (PHOTO GLOBALWEATHERLOGISTICS.COM)

Meteorologists stationed at Canada’s remote Alert station on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island might have felt a little warmer than usual last week, after outside temperatures rocketed to nearly above freezing and shattered seasonal averages.

Environment and Climate Change Canada reports that in mid-February, temperatures around Alert rose above -20 C, and even got as high as -4 C by Feb. 17, before slowly descending back to seasonal norms.

Seasonal averages on northern Ellesmere Island for this time of year—when the sun has yet to rise since it set last October—usually hover at around -30 C.

Brian Proctor, a meteorologist for Environment Canada, told Nunatsiaq News that the weather anomaly was caused, in part, by an especially strong Arctic air vortex, pulling cold air down over Nunavut’s Kivalliq region, and drawing warm air up from the south to the North Pole.

That vortex is currently locked over Chesterfield Inlet.

“If the air moves out of somewhere, it has to be replaced by air coming in from somewhere else,” Proctor explained.

So while scientists in Alert were strumming guitars on their porch swing, residents along the western coast of Hudson Bay weren’t looking for any excuses to go outside, with temperatures falling to a punishing -60 C with the wind chill.

“The stronger the vortex is, the colder the air is going to be across the Kivalliq and the warmer the air might be getting up in the extreme northern portion of the Canadian Arctic,” Proctor said.

A mid-winter warm spell has becoming increasingly common in the last few years.

In 2015, weather buoys near the North Pole recorded warm weather in December that was comparable to seasonal averages felt at the same time in Vancouver, B.C.

And monthly Arctic ice reports indicate that the 2017-18 winter could potentially upset the previous record low for the least amount of seasonal sea ice.

Much of the seasonal ice loss this year is taking place on the Pacific side of North America, above Alaska, which is the same area affected by La Niña, a weather phenomenon that draws warm air up from the equatorial Pacific and into the Northern Hemisphere, also affecting the Arctic vortex over Nunavut.

Proctor said Nunavummiut living in the Kivalliq should continue to expect lower than normal temperatures because of the dual influence of the vortex and La Niña.

“During those kind of conditions, the cold air tends to last a little bit longer and be a little more intense than normal over the Kivalliq,” he said.