For the second year in a row in late December and for the second time in as many months, temperatures in the high Arctic will be freakishly high compared to normal.
Computer models project that on Thursday, three days before Christmas, the temperature near the North Pole will be an astronomical 40-50 degrees warmer-than-normal and approaching 32 degrees, the melting point.
On some forecast maps simulating Arctic temperatures, the color bar does not even go as high as predicted levels.
The warmth will be drawn into the Arctic by a powerhouse storm east of Greenland. The European weather model estimates its lowest pressure will be around 945 millibars, which is comparable to many category 3 hurricanes.
"That's pretty intense," said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with WeatherBell Analytics.
Maue explained that depleted sea ice cover east of the Nordic Sea helps create a passageway for warm air to surge north uninhibited. "You have more real estate available to advect the warm and moist air northward," he said.
Comment: The arctic is perhaps the most volatile environment on the planet. These extremes can be seen through ice core samples throughout millennia. The current predicted warm temperatures aren't evidence of AGW pushed by political activists in the media, but they are signs that the earth is experiencing changes that may in fact lead to a new ice age.