Strong Bering Sea Storm

Rick Thoman pointed out that an unusually strong storm made its way across the northwestern Bering Sea earlier this week.  Here's the surface analysis from 4pm AKDT Wednesday, courtesy of Environment Canada, with a red circle indicating the location of St Lawrence Island.  Click to enlarge.

The storm's minimum MSLP was estimated to be 974mb as it passed west of St Lawrence Island, and it "made landfall" in eastern Chukotka at 977mb.  This is unusually low for the time of year - in fact, it's the lowest MSLP on record (1950-present) anywhere in the northern Bering Sea for this late in the season.

To illustrate this, the map below shows the 1950-2023 minimum MSLP for May 11th through the 31st, based on ERA5 data.  The record low values from the northern Gulf of Anadyr across to the northeastern Bering Sea and Norton Sound are 980mb or above; so this was a record strong storm for this late in the season (the June record values are higher). 

Are strong storms becoming more common at this time of year in the Bering Sea?  Not at all.  Interestingly, the trend is the opposite: here's the annual series of May minimum MSLP in a box that approximates the northern Bering Sea.  Note that this is for all of May: there have been stronger storms than this week's event in the first week of the month.

The trend is statistically significant at a fairly high level (R=+0.28, 74 years), and it makes this week's event all the more notable.  But admittedly there is some uncertainty in the reanalysis data, especially for the earliest years (pre-1958, in particular).

Looking at trends in monthly minima through the year, spring stands out as a time with positive trends, i.e. less extreme storms over time, whereas February shows a trend for increasingly strong storms.

The time series for February again has a significant trend, and indeed the change around 1990 does look real.  I don't have an explanation for these trends.