Rick Thoman wrote about mid-January snow conditions at his site today, and I think it's worth amplifying some of the information here. Snowpack is now very poor in western and southwestern Alaska, as there has been some very warm weather - notably so last weekend, but again today it is substantially above freezing over much of the southwest, with rain in some places. The first map below is several days out of date, being based on ERA5 data, but it shows a more extensive area of very low snowpack than the map I posted on New Year's Eve (second map below):
The satellite image below, taken on Wednesday, shows that there is (or was) still snow on the ground across the Y-K Delta region, but it seems it's a minimal snowpack. Click to enlarge:
On the plus side, it seems that there's been enough snow at elevation to improve the snowpack a bit in south-central Alaska, although it's still well below normal along the northern Gulf coast:
As for sea ice, the latest NWS analysis lines up nicely with the satellite image, with ice coverage extending just south of Nunivak Island.
The NSIDC analysis (showing regions of 15% sea ice concentration or more) is similar, and it reflects a modest deficit for the Bering Sea compared to the 1981-2010 normal. Arctic-wide, sea ice extent is running very close to a record low, and it's notable that there are no areas with significantly above-normal ice for the time of year.
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