STRONGEST LOW IN THE WORLD TO DELIVER UNPRECEDENTED SNOW TO WESTERN CANADA AND NORTHWEST U.S.

JANUARY 1, 2021 CAP ALLON

https://electroverse.net/strongest-low-in-the-world-to-deliver-unprecedented-snow-to-b-c-and-nw-u-s/

On Wednesday, December 30 a monster storm intensified across the western Pacific, one that brought record-breaking cold and snow to Japan.

The system set many new monthly low temperature records across Japan, including in the nation’s northern town of Horokanai where a staggering -32.6C (27F) was logged (shown below). Some eastern and northern regions are also forecast to pickup 4+ meters (13+ feet) of snow during the first week of January.

The interaction of this frigid Arctic air mass with a powerful Pacific jet stream then resulted in a rapid intensification, reports ca.news.yahoo.com.

As the Siberian air flowing across the western Pacific met warmer, sub-tropical flow south of Japan, it created the necessary conditions to push the atmosphere to the limit.

The Pacific’s explosively intensifying low ranks as the strongest nontropical cyclone since at least 1958.

According to the washingtonpost.com, the storm’s pressure dropped to 921 millibars on New Year’s Eve, meaning it also qualified as the strongest storm on record to hit Alaska.

Climatologist Brian Brettschneider on Twitter was there for the record breaking moment when at around midday on Dec. 31 Alaska’s previous record low pressure of 925 millibars –set in 1977 (solar minimum of cycle 20)– was eclipsed by a new reading of 924.8 millibars:

The record breaking system is transporting the coldest airmass on the planet from Siberia across the Pacific Ocean. And while currently centered over the uninhabited Aleutian Archipelago in Western Alaska, all of that energy traversing the Pacific Ocean will soon create wintry weather chaos in western Canada and the NW U.S., and as reported by ca.news.yahoo.com, B.C. ski resorts will be measuring snowfall, not in centimetres, but in metres in the days and weeks to come.

GFS Total Snowfall (inches) Jan 1 – Jan 16 [tropicaltidbits.com].

The storm also presents an amazing contrast from a provisional world record high-pressure zone currently sitting over Mongolia:  https://electroverse.net/world-record-for-high-air-pressure-set-as-asia-suffers-record-cold/

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