A spike in temperature has led to serious blizzard warnings in Ulukhaktok and Sachs Harbour.
Environment Canada issued the warning at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 3, asking residents to avoid travel if at all possible.
With the blizzard comes winds gusting up to 110 kilometres per hour and up to 15 centimetres of snow in Ulukhaktok. With visibility reduced to less than 400 metres, the blizzard is expected to last until Friday.
Sachs Harbour also got hit with high wind, blasting up to 100 km/h and bringing between five and 10 cm of snow with it. The blizzard is expected to slow down by Friday afternoon.
Anyone who needs to travel during these conditions is recommended to drive slowly and keep a sharp look out for tail lights on the road ahead. Pets should be kept indoors or provided with proper shelter until the storm subsides.
Meanwhile, the warm temperatures brought freezing rain to the Beaufort Delta, with warnings issued for Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik and Inuvik as the mercury approached zero degrees. At 11:15 a.m., the Dempster Highway was temporally closed due to blowing snow.
Temperatures are expected to return to their normal double-digit negatives by this evening.
The warm temperatures come just days after the World Meteorological Organization announced that 2020 was the third warmest year on record, narrowly outpaced by 2016 and 2019, meaning all three of the warmest years on record have occurred after 2015.
Of that, the Arctic has warmed three times faster than the planet, on average, with Siberia taking the brunt of the warming with temperatures soared as much as 5 C over historical averages. Siberia has reported a significant increase in wildfires as well.
Global warming has resulted in significant changes to the local ecology, with concerns about the long-term fate of permafrost, which is known to contain methane and other greenhouse gases, as well as melting ice caps. The WMO said that Greenland had lost 152 billion tonnes of ice from January to August this year.
2020 has also seen a spike in hurricanes reported in the Northern Atlantic, with 30 named stormed this year — a new record.