Hijiori, Japan Loses Power After 2.3m (7.6ft) Of Snow Hits; Severe Weather Warnings Encompass All Of Iceland; + N. Hemisphere Snow Extent Continues To Climb Far-Above Average, With Much More Forecast

Cap Allon

Hijiori, Japan Loses Power After 2.3m (7.6ft) Of Snow Hits

It’s been snowy in Japan this week — all-time, record-busting, AGW-destroying snowy.

Hijiori is the country’s snowiest locale, with 2.32 (7.6ft) on the ground as of Tuesday, December 20.

That total is likely to have climbed since then, but the area is dealing with widespread power outages which are also impacting weather stations.


The scenes across Central/Northern Japan are truly jaw-dropping:


All-time snowfall records are being slain.

For more on that:

Cold Wave Grips East Asia, Felling All-Time Snowfall Records Across Japan; Historic Snow In Moscow; + Christmas Freeze: Extreme Cold/Snow To Blast North America Over The Holidays


Severe Weather Warnings Encompass All Of Iceland

A severe weather warning is in place for the whole of Iceland, and police are advising people to stay at home as high winds, heavy snow and dangerous icy road conditions bring much of the country to a standstill.

Since Saturday, blizzards have forced the closure of Iceland’s international airport, Keflavik, trapping thousands of passengers.

Easyjet passengers had been booked hotel rooms; however, all access roads were blocked by the snow, meaning a 1000+ people had to hunker down in the airport lounge.

The city of Keflavik itself has also been cut off from the capital, Reykjavik, as deep snow blocked the 30-mile highway link.

“Blizzard conditions for days are not that common in Iceland,” tweeted Gisli Olafsson, MP for Iceland’s Pirate Party.

“They were caused by heavy snowfall (30+ cm) overnight on Saturday, followed by cold weather and strong winds.”


N. Hemisphere Snow Extent Continues To Climb Far-Above Average, With Much More Forecast

Snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere continues its dogged march above the multidecadal norm, according to the latest data, with winter storm Elliot about to extend the snowline by at least another 1 million km2 in North America.

The extensive snow is aiding Arctic air in its descent south.

Record-breaking temperatures are sweeping most N. Hem land masses, most recently in Europe, Eastern Asia and North America. The UK busted all-time mid-Dec readings in books dating back to the 1800s this week, and, according to the Central England Temperature dataset –which extends back to 1659– Britain was on for its 9th coldest December in 363-years.

–All impossibilities by now (2022) under the ‘global warming’ hypothesis.

The Northern Hemisphere broke a weekly snow extent record last month, and the United States endured its snowiest-ever Nov 16 when 41.1% of the Lower 48 was under a coating of the white stuff, with similar benchmarks felled in Europe.

Below is an image of southern England taken on Dec 15, courtesy of NASA. Here, thanks to the fallen snow, temperatures failed to rise above -2C (28.4F) for a number of days despite wall-to-wall sunshine — a rare feat for this part of the world.

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-8uk


November Extent

Northern Hemisphere snow extent for November 2022 closed at a whopping 1.04 million square miles above average, according to the NOAA/Rutgers Global Snow Lab, which ranks as the fourth-largest NH November snow extent on record (to 1966).

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-9snow11


According to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, NH snow extent finished at 37.75 million km2 last month, with a positive anomaly of 2.70 million km2 — the most significant snow extent since 1993’s 38.60 million km2.

This is the story in recent years: our Novembers –and indeed our autumns– are getting snowier:

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-10nagreenland
North America & Greenland snow extent was the third-highest on record in Nov 2022.
snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-10eurasia
A clear ‘growing trend’ is noted in Eurasia, too.


Large autumnal snow cover often indicates a colder-than-normal winter to come.

As touched on above, extensive snow means descending Arctic air will hold colder for longer, due to two fundamental parameters.: albedo and emissivity feedback.

The albedo of fresh snow can be as high as 0.95, meaning 95% of the sun’s radiation is reflected; snow also has a very high emissivity (averaging 0.98), with snow-covered ground seeing high outgoing longwave radiation, which, without boring everybody = cooling.


Latest Snow Extent

Even after a temporary thawing in Europe, hemisphere-wide snow extent remains well-above the 56-year mean, currently running at about 45 million km2, according to the NOAA/Rutgers Global Snow Lab, with Europe still 62.4% covered:

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-1snoweu


Across the pond, an intensifying Arctic Outbreak is about to drive ‘NH Snow Cover’ on further.

Truly monstrous winter storm Elliott is on course to deliver feet of fresh snow to North America over the Holidays.

As predicted by spells of low solar activity, frigid polar air is being funneled anomalously-far south into the lower latitudes thanks to a correlating weakening or ‘buckling’ of the jet stream.

In this case, Arctic cold is cascading down through Canada, through the U.S. and into the deep South–and even beyond, into Mexico. The upshot of which will be 1) a record-cold festive period for hundreds-of-millions of North Americans, 2) pressure on an already fragile power grid, and 3) potentially historic volumes of snow that threaten to not only maintain Northern Hemisphere snow cover above the multidecadal mean, but also back above the 56-year max (1966 to 2022):

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-2purple


Visualizing the NH snow, the Rutgers Daily Snow Extent map (shown below) reveals that practically all of Russia and Eastern Europe is completely covered, with snow also encasing all of Canada, Alaska, as well as a healthy portion of the Lower 48:

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-4daily


A quick look at Greenland reveals that mass has been building at a prestigious rate here, too; at an unprecedented rate, in fact, in weather books dating back to 1981 (DMI):


Besides extent, mass –or rather depth– is indeed another useful parameter when gauging our planet’s snow.

ECCC provides us with daily snow depth versus the historical norm. The government agency’s snow map (shown below) displays, among other series, spatial snow depth anomalies against a 1998-2012 average.

Areas with snow depth roughly within the historical norm are shaded gray, with reds indicating below and greens/blues meaning above. Clear to see, this is a snowier-than-average start to winter across the Northern Hemisphere: greens are the predominate color (indicating 10-20cm above-avg snow depth), with dark blues showing in much of Northern China (60-80cm above normal).

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-3nowdepth

And looking at yet another dataset, the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s chart, ‘Total Snow Mass for the Northern Hemisphere’, supports the snowy picture, with mass continuing to track well-above the 1982-2012 average:

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-6we


Increasing Winter Extent

As with autumn extent, winter snow extent is also on the increase, since the late-1960s, contrary to The Narrative:

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-nhwinter


Regional data for North America shows an even starker increase (shown below), with Eurasia posting similar gains.

snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-christmas-rising-usa-eu-snow-forecast-USA winter


Outlook

Winter 2022 may only be a day old, but it’s about to be Christened by one almighty dumping of snow — across large portions of both Eurasia and North America.

Record-smashing blizzards are about to tear through Canada and the U.S., dropping totals that will see the continent’s snow mass spike dramatically over the Holidays — followed by dangerously-cold temperatures into the -60s for some.

Latest forecasts show the snowline extending 1 million km south over just a few days, from central Nebraska to northeast Oklahoma as well as from South Wisconsin to North Tennessee and from Michigan towards North Carolina.

GFS Total Snowfall (inches) Dec 22 – Jan 7 [tropicaltidbits.com].


Snow will continue to pound large swathes of Asia, too, especially China.

The province of Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan –for example– will experience heavy snow over the weekend and into next week, dumpings that will, as is the case in North America, be immediately chased by a fierce outbreak of frigid Siberia air.

GFS Total Snowfall (cm) Dec 22 – Jan 7 [tropicaltidbits.com].


I’ll probably leave it there for the festive period (back on Dec 28).

My children have a great stack of board games that they’re waiting on me to crack open and play.

Thank you to everyone who has supported my efforts, particularly to my 516 patrons and to those who have donated via Paypal.

If you happen to reside in one of the regions on course to be walloped by these incoming Arctic Outbreaks be sure to prepare for ALL eventualities. Don’t trust local authorities to come to your aid, resources will be stretched. Rely on yourselves. You know this.

Merry Christmas.