The Arctic Heatwave Hits Central Siberia Pushing Temperatures to 90 Degrees and Sparking Tundra Fires

Siberian Fires June21

(Fires Flare in Central Siberia As Temperatures Near 90 Degrees. Image source: Lance-Modis)

Today, a heatwave circling the Arctic set its sights on central Siberia. Temperatures soared into the upper 80s to near 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) over a vast region of Siberian tundra, setting off pop-corn thunderstorms and sparking large, ominous fires reminiscent of the blazes that roared through this region during late June of 2012. Those fires were so large they sent a plume of smoke over the Pacific Ocean and blanketed valleys in western Canada.

Each individual fire in the above image hosts a plume of smoke about a hundred miles long. The fire to the far left, hosts a very long smoke plume of at least 350 miles in length.

You can see these soaring Siberian temperatures and related fires on the Arctic weather map below. Note the instances of 32 degrees Celsius temperatures (which is 89.6 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale).

Siberian Heat June 21

(Siberian Heat. Image Source: Uni-Koeln)

If you look to the right side of the above map, you’ll see a large swath of pink spanning the Arctic from Norway all the way to the Pacific coastal region of Siberia. The most intense heat is located directly in the center of this zone where sporadic readings of 90 degree temperatures start to pop up. Fires are also shown on this weather map, indicated by a vertical black bar with a squiggly black line at the top.

Heatwave conditions also appear to have re-flared in Scandinavia where numerous instances of 80 degree + weather appear.

Alaska is in its ‘cool night-time’ phase. But even now, some locations in the interior are showing ‘lows’ of 70 degrees — which is hotter than usual highs for this time of year in that region.

Looking at the Jet Stream map for today, we see three anomalous pulses rising up over each of these regions.

Mangled Jet Jun21

(Image source: California Regional Weather Service)

The Siberian pulse rises just to the edge of the Arctic Ocean. The Scandinavian pulse hits the top of Norway and Sweden. Meanwhile, the Alaskan pulse rides all the way up into the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Jet Stream waves should not penetrate so far into the Arctic. It is a situation facilitated both by eroding sea ice and by loss of snow cover during spring and summer. As of May, both sea ice volume and Northern Hemisphere snow cover were the third lowest on record. Back in September of 2012, Arctic sea ice hit a record low volume that was 80% below levels seen in the early 1980s.

This mangling of the Jet Stream has also been implicated in a number of severe weather events (spawned by blocking patterns associated with large waves in the Jet Stream) including the extreme European Winter and Spring of 2013, the US Drought of 2012-2013, Hurricane Sandy, and, now, various heat-waves striking the Arctic.

Links:

Lance-Modis

Uni-Koeln

California Regional Weather Service

Dr. Jennifer Francis Explains the Extreme Jet Stream

Smoke From Massive Siberian Fires Seen in Canada

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27 Comments

  1. Kees van Diggelen

     /  June 25, 2013

    does not seem to impress those who rule this world

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  2. Thanks for your posts. I shall be watching closely for changing patterns and hopefully alert anyone who cares, and at the moment that does not seem like many.

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    • True. But the number seems to be growing lately. I think your diligence has an impact.

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      Reply
    • Cheryl

       /  June 25, 2013

      There are people that care and are noticing, but any time I bring it to someone’s attention, I get t’he same response. The weather has always been like this. The news just is reporting it more, and so more people are becoming paranoid about it”. They seem to bundle scientific fact like reported temp. readings, with end of the world or conspiracy theories.

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      • I think more people are noticing the weather isn’t normal. At some point, there’s a tipping of perception. For my part, I think we’re in the process of tipping, but we haven’t quite tipped.

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  3. An Arctic spawned blocking high over Eastern Canada brought scorching weather, and an extreme heat alert to Toronto. The same system prevented water-logged storm clouds from moving East as usual from the Prairies. The result: massive flooding of Calgary and other Alberta towns, very high water in Saskatchewan.
    About a week ago it was 96 degrees in Alaska, beating the previous June high for that day of 75.

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  4. Watch the weather chanel to learn how scientists are playing with weather…..stop before it is too late

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  5. Speaking of fires, west of Hudson Bay, in Northern Manitoba , and in Labrador. The ones in Manitoba are most certainly burning like the peat forests around Moscow. The smoke behaves like the tundra fire in Alaska in 2007 . When the ground is burning , and the wind lays down, the smoke is very dense, with little ripples in it.

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  6. I would add that the floods in India, were set set-up by the 3 weeks in May where Pakistan was 120F and above . The giant high with muscles , and a river of water vapor flowing North on the East side.

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  7. Thank you for your interest in my site and all the likes on my site. Is there a way to get in touch with you via email? I notice you have books available on your site. There are a number of titles I’d like to make available, particularly about Distributism and the emerging New Economy. If you could point me to information about how to do that, I’d really appreciate it.

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    • If you want, you can chat with me via facebook.com/luthielssong.

      Thanks for the interest. I’ve enjoyed reading your blogs and look forward to more articles and information.

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