Snow & Ice coverage in the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2018/19

[Norrance]

Eastern Canada seems to be well ahead of average looking at Aleman’s charts.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Norrance

[Snipper]

On 19/10/2018 at 14:09, Aleman said:

I'm not meaning to bang on about Texas but my sister has just told me on the phone that the record-breaking cold air (and snow) that has come down from Canada has battled with moist air from the still very warm Gulf of Mexico and produced an exceptional level of rain in central Texas where it wasn't cold enough to snow. The week's total is expected to reach 20 inches. She abandoned home and went to stay at her daughter's on higher ground. The area she lives in has lots of lakeside residences and lake levels have risen to near-record levels not seen for 80 years after they dried up a lot through the hot first decade of this millenium. (Same as the Great Lakes.) The cooler years they've had since have often turned ground boggy and flushed out snakes and scorpions. Armadillos and raccoons can be troublesome as well when they hunt for food. Local dirt roads have become impassable and some bridges have been closed after a major one was washed away. Ironically, she was going to pick up a 4x4 truck, with tow line, this week to manage wet weather and bad roads better but she could not pick it up due to the flooding! They had a delivery truck badly stuck in mud on her land last year where vehicles trying to rescue it got stuck too and they had a messy job getting them all out. That unbroken long line of rain between very cold arctic air and warm moist gulf air is now crossing the North Atlantic and being stretched thinner and twisted a bit but it looks like Scotland might still get a taste of it now and then over the next 7-10 days.

 

They seem to have been slow to open floodgates to protect communities downstream and flooded them upstream instead

https://www.today.com/video/texas-flooding-18-counties-now-under-state-of-emergency-1347129411946?v=raila&

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-flooding-catches-homeowners-off-guard-kingsland/

 

 

Very interesting for those of us who live in a bland average area of the world. 

[Met4Cast]

My only issue with Eastern America going cold is that it tends to ramp up the Jet Stream across the Atlantic and can make getting favourable blocking for us difficult, this has been one of the problems in the last few years, too. 

Having said that, the continued de-coupled Strat/Trop is a good sign and once of the reasons I think a front loaded winter is likely this year. 

[summer blizzard]

6 hours ago, Norrance said:

Eastern Canada seems to be well ahead of average looking at Aleman’s charts.

Canadian snowfall is running at a record pace.

[Turnedoutniceagain]

Plenty more to come this week

[summer blizzard]

Euro looking good for forecast snow totals over Russia/China, also heads west. 

Can we get some end of month charts for prior years?

[Interitus]

On 20/10/2018 at 22:27, Midlands Ice Age said:

I think that Interitus is on to a loser here.

The real connection has been made about 300 miles east of Wrangle Island.

See a Zoomed Maisie below.

http://masie_web.apps.nsidc.org/pub/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/latest/4km/masie_all_r00_4km.png

The main ESS ice sheet has actually bridged over to the coastal ice.

Will it expand from there?

MIA

Au contraire!

The area is to the WEST of Wrangel island - it is at the Medvezhyi Islands as shown in the previous image from the Sentinel satellite on the 19/10. There was clear water between the land fast and floating ice, as confirmed by the Russian Northern Sea Route Administration ice chart -

The gap narrowed on 20/10 - but was still open at the time of the above posts -

The land fast ice joined up to the floating ice on 21/10 -

Will still be open to suitable ice rated vessels for some time - the ice is thin with no multi-year ice.

[Aleman]

We're not talking about ice rated vessels. It could be open all year if that were the case. And why the argument about a day or two?

Now I'm no expert on climate metrology like some here but I've read about sailors having problems knowing what is going on in marginal ice conditions. Grease ice can be a metre deep and not show up on images and other forms of new ice like nilas can be hard to see. Their presence can sometimes be guessed at from the sea surface temperature and oddly smoother sea surface compared to wind conditions. I still suggest the Northern Sea Route could well have been effectively closed to sailing and some smaller engined vessels for a few days before the 20th since dark grease ice can be like sailing through treacle and can solidify suddenly to quite a depth if wind drops. You' be mad or desperate to try get though it with a small vessel.

 

Grease ice observed from space is dark, like an oil slick.

http://mallemaroking.org/ice-on-rough-seas/

 

Open and shut for sailing is not quite as black and white as what measurement models and satellite images say. They provide great data but I'd suggest pinpointing freezing sea to the exact day is not possible so there is no point arguing about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Aleman

[Katrine Basso]

Some small increases of snow cover.

[Don]

43 minutes ago, Katrine Basso said:

Some small increases of snow cover.

Really need to see a big expansion during the next week.

[Midlands Ice Age]

28 minutes ago, Don said:

1 hour ago, Katrine Basso said:

Some small increases of snow cover.

Really need to see a big expansion during the next week.

Katrine...

Not your problem....

But can someone explain  why the above graph states Sun 21st.

Yet if I click on it in order to get a larger view, it then gives me a security/certificate error.

and Yet again, if I say 'carry on anyway',   it then gives me the report for Mon 22nd (in which the sea ice looks totally different?)

MIA 

 

 

 

[Catacol]

On 21/10/2018 at 15:30, Daniel Smith said:

My only issue with Eastern America going cold is that it tends to ramp up the Jet Stream across the Atlantic and can make getting favourable blocking for us difficult, this has been one of the problems in the last few years, too. 

 

True enough - its a risk. Given the temperature gradient that looks likely to form off the east coast of US/Canada we'll be lucky to avoid at least one substantial period of cyclogenesis. However the picture is a bit more complicated than this - much depends on the passage of the jet as it moves through the American continent, and this is determined to a large extent by what is happening upstream in the pacific. Weak Nino may help prevent a flat pattern firing out on Canada, and we are all watching the development of the vortex carefully. Currently up at 10hpa it is building well, but at lower levels is still rather disorganised. It would require a number of factors to come together at once to create the nightmare +NAO flat and wet atlantic that many of us dread, and I think there is grounds for optimism that this wont occur this year. (famous last words....)

 

[Norrance]

7 hours ago, Catacol said:

True enough - its a risk. Given the temperature gradient that looks likely to form off the east coast of US/Canada we'll be lucky to avoid at least one substantial period of cyclogenesis. However the picture is a bit more complicated than this - much depends on the passage of the jet as it moves through the American continent, and this is determined to a large extent by what is happening upstream in the pacific. Weak Nino may help prevent a flat pattern firing out on Canada, and we are all watching the development of the vortex carefully. Currently up at 10hpa it is building well, but at lower levels is still rather disorganised. It would require a number of factors to come together at once to create the nightmare +NAO flat and wet atlantic that many of us dread, and I think there is grounds for optimism that this wont occur this year. (famous last words....)

 

Both 1979 and 1947 had cold Winters in the Eastern U.S. Why did that not lead to a wet and mild Atlantic for us?

Edited October 23, 2018 by Norrance

[damianslaw]

Its been a very slow start to snow cover build up this year, we are quite far behind most recent years at this stage. However, we should see a rapid advance over the coming days both over west russia, but also scandi, indeed some significant snowfall and low temperatures there.

 

[Midlands Ice Age]

11 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Katrine...

Not your problem....

But can someone explain  why the above graph states Sun 21st.

Yet if I click on it in order to get a larger view, it then gives me a security/certificate error.

and Yet again, if I say 'carry on anyway',   it then gives me the report for Mon 22nd (in which the sea ice looks totally different?)

MIA 

 

 

 

Re the above.... no replies

So I will show 

1) the first (shown by Katrine)  is shown as a PRTSCRN here -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/343mk6auv8bewaa/Screenshot 2018-10-23 21.20.20.png?dl=0

 

2) Whereas  after the certificate error this chart comes up (via PRTSCRN) -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7cut6dr0a0vxlk/Screenshot 2018-10-23 21.18.08.png?dl=0

 

As you can see it is a day later, and the ice has 'mushroomed' in the ESS and Laptev.

 

MIA

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Midlands Ice Age

[unixmaven]

15 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Katrine...

Not your problem....

But can someone explain  why the above graph states Sun 21st.

Yet if I click on it in order to get a larger view, it then gives me a security/certificate error.

and Yet again, if I say 'carry on anyway',   it then gives me the report for Mon 22nd (in which the sea ice looks totally different?)

MIA

Yes, but this is wildly, wildly off topic.

We will start with the easy bit.  When a post is created containing an image, the software takes its own local copy  of a scaled down version and serves that up, and links to the full sized one elsewhere on the internet.

The image in the post was linked to the "curnow" (that is, most up to date) version of the snow+ice map.  The snapshot was taken on the day of the post, while clicking through gets you the actual, current version for right now.  To avoid this, the archived version with a datestamp in its name should be preferred.

Now the harder to understand bit.

In order to ensure the security and authenticity of a website, we use a system called TLS (Transport layer Security), built on a system called Public Key Cryptography.  Public Key Cryptography allows us to break keys down into a secret and a non-secret component, which are effectively interchangeable.  Anything encrypted using a public (nonsecret) key may be decrypted using the secret key, and anything encrypted using the secret key may be decrypted using the public key.

For encryption purposes, you would normally encrypt with the public key, and the recipient would decrypt using their secret (or private) key.  However, if you turn this on its head, and encrypt something with your private key, so that ther people can decrypt it with your public key, then you arrive in a situation where the payload is not secret (everyone can decrypt it) but they can be confident that it genuinely came from you, because only you know your secret key, and therefore nobody else could possibly have used it for encryption.

HOWEVER, how do you know  that the secret key actually belongs to www.natice.noaa.gov?  I mean, anybody could create a key pair claiming to be them, and serve up anything.  There is no assurance of identity.  To solve this problem, we use a system of signed keys, which terminate with a trusted third party,  The www.natice.noaa.gov public key is signed by the private key of the certificate issuer.  The certificate issuer's public key is then signed by a more "trusted" key, until in the end you arrive at the root key.  Now, if everybody trusts this root key (we all do: our web browsers ship with a list of trusted keys), then we can validate each public key in turn from the root right down to www.natice.noaa.gov

But, how do we get our hands on that chain of keys?  Simple, www.natice.noaa.gov sends them to us.  Yep.  All of the public keys in that whole chain.  This is the only way to be sure that browsers can authenticate the trust relationship and be sure their encrypted traffic really is going to www.natice.noaa.gov.uk.

So, what do you think happens if it turns out that NOAA screwed up and are either not serving up this chain, or are serving up the wrong chain?  Yep, you guessed it:  if your browser doesn't trust the key which signed www.natice.noaa.gov, then it craps out and asks you what you want to do.  And that is exactly what is happening here (it looks to me like they aren't serving the chain at all, but I might be wrong; it's gone 1am here ...).

[Katrine Basso]

Snow is slowly return back to parts of Scandinavia, which is forecasted to increase by the weekend.

[Katrine Basso]

My image keeps on showing Sunday October 21 2018 but if I click onto it shows the snow and ice chart of Monday October 24 2018.

[Midlands Ice Age]

8 hours ago, unixmaven said:

Yes, but this is wildly, wildly off topic.

We will start with the easy bit.  When a post is created containing an image, the software takes its own local copy  of a scaled down version and serves that up, and links to the full sized one elsewhere on the internet.

The image in the post was linked to the "curnow" (that is, most up to date) version of the snow+ice map.  The snapshot was taken on the day of the post, while clicking through gets you the actual, current version for right now.  To avoid this, the archived version with a datestamp in its name should be preferred.

Now the harder to understand bit.

In order to ensure the security and authenticity of a website, we use a system called TLS (Transport layer Security), built on a system called Public Key Cryptography.  Public Key Cryptography allows us to break keys down into a secret and a non-secret component, which are effectively interchangeable.  Anything encrypted using a public (nonsecret) key may be decrypted using the secret key, and anything encrypted using the secret key may be decrypted using the public key.

For encryption purposes, you would normally encrypt with the public key, and the recipient would decrypt using their secret (or private) key.  However, if you turn this on its head, and encrypt something with your private key, so that ther people can decrypt it with your public key, then you arrive in a situation where the payload is not secret (everyone can decrypt it) but they can be confident that it genuinely came from you, because only you know your secret key, and therefore nobody else could possibly have used it for encryption.

HOWEVER, how do you know  that the secret key actually belongs to www.natice.noaa.gov?  I mean, anybody could create a key pair claiming to be them, and serve up anything.  There is no assurance of identity.  To solve this problem, we use a system of signed keys, which terminate with a trusted third party,  The www.natice.noaa.gov public key is signed by the private key of the certificate issuer.  The certificate issuer's public key is then signed by a more "trusted" key, until in the end you arrive at the root key.  Now, if everybody trusts this root key (we all do: our web browsers ship with a list of trusted keys), then we can validate each public key in turn from the root right down to www.natice.noaa.gov

But, how do we get our hands on that chain of keys?  Simple, www.natice.noaa.gov sends them to us.  Yep.  All of the public keys in that whole chain.  This is the only way to be sure that browsers can authenticate the trust relationship and be sure their encrypted traffic really is going to www.natice.noaa.gov.uk.

So, what do you think happens if it turns out that NOAA screwed up and are either not serving up this chain, or are serving up the wrong chain?  Yep, you guessed it:  if your browser doesn't trust the key which signed www.natice.noaa.gov, then it craps out and asks you what you want to do.  And that is exactly what is happening here (it looks to me like they aren't serving the chain at all, but I might be wrong; it's gone 1am here ...).

Unixmaven….

Thank you for this explanation.

I am grateful to you for it.

I notice that it is your first post on here. May I extend a warm welcome and hope that you will take a more  active interest in what must be also a favourite interest of yours. I am assuming that you are in network and IT software development.

I will take two points from your post -

1)  that by using CURNOW one can see a more up to date current picture of the ice.

2) That a copy of  your reply  should be transferred over to the tech threads on here, as it is a very good (and relatively easy to understand) explanation of the security of the web.

Could any mod reading this please transfer to the appropriate thread?.

I was aware of the TLS, but not  how it worked.

Again thank you.

MIA 

[Froze were the Days]

2 hours ago, Katrine Basso said:

Snow is slowly return back to parts of Scandinavia, which is forecasted to increase by the weekend.

and then disappear later next week...all a bit of a struggle currently

[karyo]

22 minutes ago, Froze were the Days said:

and then disappear later next week...all a bit of a struggle currently

It is a double whammy this autumn with record low ice and very low snow cover. Not where we want to be.

[summer blizzard]

6 minutes ago, karyo said:

It is a double whammy this autumn with record low ice and very low snow cover. Not where we want to be.

Snow cover is relatively low compared to recent mammoth years. It is not radically behind average. Bear in mind that 2009, 2014 and 2016 had more or less record totals. 

[Methuselah]

5 minutes ago, summer blizzard said:

Snow cover is relatively low compared to recent mammoth years. It is not radically behind average. Bear in mind that 2009, 2014 and 2016 had more or less record totals. 

So, on two out of three recent mammoths, all we saw here in the UK was a pygmy shrew!

[summer blizzard]

5 minutes ago, Ed Stone said:

So, on two out of three recent mammoths, all we saw here in the UK was a pygmy shrew!

Well in 2014 the gradiant was not actually special because of the high start (it's supposed to be the gradient of increase rather than extent that links to the AO) but yeah, the winter of 2017 went against what should have been the tide. 

For us to have a strong gradient this year we want to end the month on about 13 million square kilometers in Eurasia. 

Edited October 24, 2018 by summer blizzard

[Methuselah]

32 minutes ago, summer blizzard said:

Well in 2014 the gradiant was not actually special because of the high start (it's supposed to be the gradient of increase rather than extent that links to the AO) but yeah, the winter of 2017 went against what should have been the tide. 

For us to have a strong gradient this year we want to end the month on about 13 million square kilometers in Eurasia. 

In that case, we might even have another correlation to work with: one based on the gradient in the last week of October? The longer the advance is delayed, the steeper its gradient will be (on average) when it does finally get its 'aris in gear?