"Greenland Block" Causes Remarkable Heat Wave Up There; But Kinda Boring Vermont Weather

Upper air pattern featured intense, record warm (for them)
temperatures over Greenland, chilly low pressure off the
east coast of Canada and the Pacific Northwest, and
boring weather for us here in Vermont. 

We're in a weather pattern known as a "Greenland Block."

When this happens, weather systems tend to get gummed up. The Greenland Block is an intense area of high pressure that parks itself over or near the island. 

This situation has low pressure spinning aimlessly off the east coast of Canada, massive high pressure in central Canada, and a diverted storm track that's sending rain and snow storms well to the south of New England, pretty much missing us here in Vermont. 

MAKES VERMONT BORING

The whole set up causes pretty boring weather here in Vermont, as you might have noticed. Temperatures have been sort of near normal if the first eight days of this month. Aside from last Saturday, we've gotten some valley snowflakes and some light accumulations in the mountains.

Temperatures night to day and day to day have varied remarkably little, too. This time of year, on any given day, there's usually an 18 degree difference between the morning low temperature and the afternoon high. 

Early March usually features wildly variable weather, with deep freezes and big thaws and back to deep freezes. But this year, in the entire eight day span of the month so far, there's only been a range of 18 degrees between the highest and lowest temperatures,  at least as measured in Burlington. 

By contrast, last year, the first eight days of March had a huge 67 degree range in Burlington, ranging from minus 3 to 64 above.

So yes, comparatively speaking, this month's weather in Vermont has been something of a yawner so far. 

MAKES GREENLAND HOT 

There's one place, though, that has had some extreme temperatures in this Greenland Block set up. And that is right in Greenland. 

As the Washington Post tells us, temperatures up there in Greenland were as much as 50 degrees above normal.

Greenland's capitol, Nuuk, on the southwestern coast of the island reached 59 degrees on Sunday. That set a record for the entire month of March. More remarkably, it was warmer than any day ever record in Nuuk during April. 

Climatologists and climate scientists always get nervous when there's a big heat wave in Greenland. In the summer, of course, this leads to big melts on the island's ice sheets. 

In this case, it's so early in the season that, even though it was incredibly warm for this time of year, most of the island was still too chilly to get the vast ice sheet melting in any significant way. 

However, every winter, bright white snow falls on the huge ice sheets. The snow is whiter than the underlying ice, and acts to reflect the early summer sun's heat.  That, in turn, can shorten the ice melt season in Greenland. 

This week's Greenland heat wave melted a lot of that bright white snow, the Washington Post reports.   That means there will probably be a lot less snow from the winter of 2022-23 on the ice sheet in late spring than there usually is. That's true even though more snow is inevitable in Greenland before summer. '

Also, the temperature of this snow will be warmer than it usually is, so it won't take as long as normal to get it to melt.

If big summer heat waves hit Greenland in the summer, as they did in 2012, 2018 and 2019, comparatively large amounts of ice will melt and flow into the oceans.  

What goes on in Greenland doesn't stay in Greenland. If too much ice up there keeps melting summer after summer, it will contribute to global sea level rise. 

Greenland has an incredible amount of ice.  But even if just 3 percent of its massively thick ice sheet melts, global sea levels would rise by almost a foot, WaPo reports. 

Scientist say that even if the world stopped releasing greenhouse gases from fossil fuels this very second, we would lose at least 3 percent of Greenland's ice cap.  

OUTLOOK

The Greenland Block is getting ready to break down slightly, at least. Temperatures will return to much closer to normal frigid weather in Greenland in the coming days. Average high temperatures in Nuuk this time of year, for example, are in the low to mid 20s. Highs are forecast to be in the low 30s there in the coming days. 

This will make the weather in Nuuk similar to that in Vermont over the next several days. The Green Mountain State's weather is forecast to remain boring for the next several days. For the next week, we'll continue to have daily highs in the 30s and lows around 20. We will continue to see little day to day variation. 

It's possible Vermont could see a decent snow, rain or mixed storm around Tuesday, but that's extremely iffy. Forecast models disagree hugely on this at the moment.  So as usual, stay tuned.