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Arctic communities are experienced with severe weather, but impacts can still be serious, particularly when the intensity or persistence of hazardous conditions is extreme. Such was the case for the community of Clyde River (Kangiqtugaapik), Nunavut, Canada, which experienced 33 blizzard days during winter 2021/22—likely the most at Clyde River since at least 1978/79. Blizzard conditions resulted from unusually frequent high winds rather than excessive snowfall. The most severe stretch included eight blizzard days over an 11-day period, with top wind gusts of 98 km h⁻¹. Winds caused severe drifting, covering homes and blocking streets. Broken heavy equipment, including snow-clearing machines, compounded the impacts, leaving homes without essential services like water delivery and sewage pump-out for days. Residents reported the storms and resulting impacts as some of the worst in memory. The drifting and volume of snow, combined with the lack of available resources to manage it, obliged the community to declare a state of emergency. Projections of increased Arctic precipitation and extreme weather events points to the need for communities to have proper resources and supports, including preparedness and adaptation and mitigation strategies, so they can be better equipped to handle storm and blizzard impacts such as those experienced at Clyde River in the winter of 2021/22. Additional steps that can be implemented to better support and prepare communities include investing in preparedness planning, expanded and enhanced weather information and services, community land-based programming to transfer Inuit knowledge and skills, assessing the usefulness of current forecasts, and new approaches to community planning.

In this study, we consider the winter of 2021/22, during which the community of Clyde River (Kangiqtugaapik), Nunavut experienced 33 days with blizzard conditions—more than any other year since at least 1978/79. Blizzards are characterized by strong winds and blowing snow. Low visibility impedes travel, and drifting snow blocks roads and can bury equipment and buildings. In this case, broken snow-clearing equipment and other infrastructure challenges also hampered the community’s ability to respond, and residents went days without essential services. Several studies suggest that extreme winds will become more common in the Baffin Bay region in the future. This study demonstrates the need for proper resourcing of communities for preparedness, response, and adaptation strategies, especially with the possibility of extreme winter weather becoming more common.

 

Abstract Harsh winters and hazards such as blizzards are synonymous with the northern Great Plains of the United States. Studying these events is difficult; the juxtaposition of cold temperatures and high winds makes microphysical observations of both blowing and falling snow challenging. Historically, these observations have been provided by costly hydrometeor imagers that have been deployed for field campaigns or at select observation sites. This has slowed the development and validation of microphysics parameterizations and remote-sensing retrievals of various properties. If cheaper, more mobile instrumentation can be developed, this progress can be accelerated. Further, lowering price barriers can make deployment of instrumentation feasible for education and outreach purposes. The Blowing Snow Observations at the University of North Dakota: Education through Research (BLOWN-UNDER) Campaign took place during the winter of 2019-2020 to investigate strategies for obtaining microphysical measurements in the harsh North Dakota winter. Student led, the project blended education, outreach, and scientific objectives. While a variety of in-situ and remote-sensing instruments were deployed for the campaign, the most novel aspect of the project was the development and deployment of OSCRE, the Open Snowflake Camera for Research and Education. Images from this instrument were combined with winter weather educational modules to describe properties of snow to the public, K-12 students, and members of indigenous communities through a tribal outreach program. Along with an educational deployment of a Doppler on Wheels mobile radar, nearly 1000 individuals were reached during the project. 

Abstract. Sea salt aerosols play an important role in the radiationbudget and atmospheric composition over the Arctic, where the climate israpidly changing. Previous observational studies have shown that Arctic sea ice leads are an important source of sea salt aerosols, and modeling efforts have also proposed blowing snow sublimation as a source. In this study,size-resolved atmospheric particle number concentrations and chemicalcomposition were measured at the Arctic coastal tundra site ofUtqiaġvik, Alaska, during spring (3 April–7 May 2016). Blowing snow conditions were observed during 25 % of the 5-week study period andwere overpredicted by a commonly used blowing snow parameterization based solely on wind speed and temperature. Throughout the study, open leads werepresent locally. During periods when blowing snow was observed, significantincreases in the number concentrations of 0.01–0.06 µm particles(factor of 6, on average) and 0.06–0.3 µm particles (67 %, on average) and a significant decrease (82 %, on average) in 1–4 µmparticles were observed compared to low wind speed periods. These size distribution changes were likely caused by the generation of ultrafineparticles from leads and/or blowing snow, with scavenging of supermicronparticles by blowing snow. At elevated wind speeds, both submicron andsupermicron sodium and chloride mass concentrations were enhanced,consistent with wind-dependent local sea salt aerosol production. Atmoderate wind speeds below the threshold for blowing snow as well as during observed blowing snow, individual sea spray aerosol particles were measured.These individual salt particles were enriched in calcium relative to sodiumin seawater due to the binding of this divalent cation with organic matter in the sea surface microlayer and subsequent enrichment during seawaterbubble bursting. The chemical composition of the surface snowpack alsoshowed contributions from sea spray aerosol deposition. Overall, theseresults show the contribution of sea spray aerosol production from leads onboth aerosols and the surface snowpack. Therefore, if blowing snowsublimation contributed to the observed sea salt aerosol, the snow beingsublimated would have been impacted by sea spray aerosol deposition rather than upward brine migration through the snowpack. Sea spray aerosol production from leads is expected to increase, with thinning and fracturingof sea ice in the rapidly warming Arctic.