May 2023 Monthly Global Snow and Ice Report

May 2023 Global Snow and Ice Report | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Extent

| May 2023 | Snow Cover Extent | | Anomaly1991-2020 | | Trendper decade | | Rank(57 years) | |
| | million km² | million mi² | million km² | million mi² | million km² | million mi² | | |

North America Eurasia

Data Source: Global Snow Laboratory, Rutgers University. Period of record: 1967–2023 (57 years)

The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent for May 2023 was 16.74 million square kilometers (6.46 million square miles), which was 1.48 million square kilometers (570,000 square miles) below the 1991–2020 average.

This May was the eighth-smallest May snow cover extent for the Northern Hemisphere.

The North America and Greenland snow cover extent for May was 16.74 million square kilometers (6.46 million square miles), which was 1.57 million square kilometers (610,000 square miles) below the 1991–2020 average. This was the smallest May snow cover extent for North America on record.

Below-average May snow cover extent was observed across most of Canada and the Rocky Mountains, while parts of Alaska saw above-average May snow cover extent.

Snow cover extent over Eurasia in May was 9.27 million square kilometers (3.58 million square miles), which was 90,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) below the 1991–2020 average. This was a near-normal Eurasian snow cover extent for May.

Across Eurasia, parts of western Europe, northwestern and central Russia, Finland, eastern Turkey, northwestern China, and Kyrgyzstan had below-average snow cover extent this month. Parts of Scandinavia, eastern Russia, and southeastern China had above-average extent for May.

Sea Ice Extent

The sea ice extent data for the Arctic and Antarctic are provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and are measured from passive microwave instruments onboard NOAA Satellites. The sea ice extent period of record is from 1979–2023 for a total of 45 years.

| May 2023 | Sea Ice Extent | Anomaly1991-2020 | Trendper decade | Rank(45 years) | |
| million km² | million mi² | Year(s) | million km² | | |

Southern Hemisphere Globe

Data Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Period of record: 1979–2023 (45 years)

Globally, May saw the second-smallest sea ice extent on record. Only May 2019 saw a smaller sea ice extent.

The Arctic sea ice extent for May 2023 ranked as the 13th smallest in the satellite record at 12.83 million square kilometers (4.95 million square miles). This was 100,000 square kilometers (40,000 square miles) below the 1991–2020 average.

Sea ice extent was below average in the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. Baffin Bay and the Bering Sea had near-normal extents for May, while the Greenland Sea, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the Sea of Japan had slightly above-average sea ice extent this May.

The April 2023 Antarctic sea ice extent ranked lowest on record at 8.36 million square kilometers (3.23 million square miles), or 1.93 million square kilometers (750,000 square miles) below the 1991–2020 average. This was 490,000 square kilometers (190,000 square miles) below the previous record low from May 2019.

Citing This Report NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Monthly Global Snow and Ice Report for May 2023, published online June 2023, retrieved on June 14, 2023 from

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/ access/ monitoring/ monthly-report/ global-snow/ 202305.