No extreme weather events forecasted
Warmer temps predicted for western Nunavut, colder for the east in 2017
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Monday, January 9, 2017
NUNAVUT
To Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor, all of Nunavut is looking a bit tamer than usual and not just the strip through the Kivalliq weather-folk like to call Blizzard Alley.
Snow is piled several metres high along the Road to Nowhere and many other locations in Iqaluit last winter. This year promises colder weather in the capital, with fewer weather events. - NNSL file photo |
"I think the key thing we're seeing this year so far is we're really not setting up for a super-strong Arctic vortex, not a really strong, strong cold air cap," said Proctor.
The vortex is an upper level low-pressure area lying near the Earth's pole.
"So we haven't seen those really big storms that will last for days in many communities. We've seen some really good wind events in Resolute, some really good wind events in places like Grise Fiord. Some blizzard activity in some of the usual locations through the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot," said Proctor, who adds the pattern in the upper atmosphere is just not conducive to the extreme events - yet.
Blizzard Alley - which can include Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin Inlet, and Arviat - can see significantly high amounts of annual hours of blizzards.
"I can recall one year we had a seven-day blizzard in Baker Lake, so a substantial number of blizzard hours - exceeding 160 hours of blizzard conditions -during one event," said Proctor.
"On average they get more than 250 hours of blizzards a year. It's quite high. That's why we call it Blizzard Alley. As a comparison, communities like Iqaluit usually get about 80 to 100 hours. In places like Cape Dorset you're only getting about 40 to 80 hours of blizzard."
Proctor says the phenomenon comes from blowing snow ripping down across the Arctic archipelago and coming down through Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet, Chesterfield and Arviat area.
"It gets into Pelly Bay (Kugaaruk) a little bit, and maybe a little bit of enhanced blizzard activity up towards Taloyoak and Gjoa Haven," he said.
"But we're not seeing the really strong cold air cap that's really going to start to develop the Arctic vortex and really allow that tight flow of Arctic air come plunging down out of the High Arctic and out of Siberia and across and coming down into the Canadian North. It's just not setting up."
The east is equally quiet. Last winter was a bit of a surprise for Iqaluit. Although December, January and February were considered dry, by April the capital had seen dramatic weather.
Environment Canada doesn't track how many times it issues blizzard warnings, which are for scenarios with less than 400 metres of visibility and winds above 40 km/h, but it does track the number of hours of "blowing snow" conditions, which means high wind and visibility below 800 metres.
Between January and March, the average number of days with blowing snow is 27. There were 58 last winter.
As of mid-April 2016, there had been 1,059 hours of blowing snow conditions in Iqaluit, while the average is 268. The harshest stretch was March 15 to 20, which had 116 consecutive hours of blowing snow.
Averages, or normals, are based on data from 1981 to 2010.
Higher than normal temperatures for the Kitikmeot and the Kivalliq and lower than normal for the Baffin region, as well as fewer blizzards, can be traced back to temperatures in the Mackenzie Delta.
"We're seeing exceptionally warm air right now up in the Mackenzie Delta area. To put it into context, Inuvik is 0 C. Fort McPherson is the warm spot at 4 C. And interestingly, Banff was -36 C this morning," said Proctor.
It's a bit turned upside down."
