This post reviews spring temperatures and precipitation for the Arctic. Pan-Arctic sea ice and snow pack for May 2026 are covered in a post here. The May climate summary for Alaska is here (now updated with ERA5 graphics).

Spring 2026 overall was colder than the 1991-2020 baseline average across most of the North American Arctic (Fig. 1). At the eastern and western ends of the continent, Nunavut and Alaska had the second coldest spring in the past 40 years, while in between, the Yukon Territory and NWT had the third coldest spring since 1987. In sharp contrast, Svalbard and all the Nordic countries warmest spring in the ERA5 reanalysis (since 1950). Overall, 60 percent of the Arctic was warmer than the 1991-2020 baseline, but only 48 percent of Arctic lands were warmer than normal, the first Spring that less than half of the Arctic landmass was above normal since 2013.

I don’t have an ready way to keep comprehensive track of site-specific daily temperatures around the Arctic (for me at least it’s full time job just keeping up with Alaska and northwest Canada) but with advances in reanalysis we can get idea of the daily extremes. Figure 2 shows the maximum hourly temperature during May from AgERA5, a post-processed version of ERA5-Land. This shows small areas near the southern edge of the Arctic domain in Finland, Russia and Canada exceeded 30°C during the month (circled on the graphic), and this is in line with available in situ observations. In Russia, Lodeynoye Pole (Leningrad Oblast at 60.7°N) reached 33.5C (92F) on May 20. On the same day, Ilomantsi Mekrijärvi, Finland (North Karelia at 62.8°N) reported 30.2C (86F). These temperatures are at or close to spring record highs. In North America, Fort Resolution, NWT, Canada (60.1°N) hit 30.1C (86F) on May 29.

Overall, temperatures this spring were typical for the past 20 years but nonetheless was the 13th warmest since 1950 and warmer than any spring except one (1990) prior to 2007 (Fig. 3). For Arctic lands, the March through May 2026 average temperature was right at the 1991-2020 baseline but still the lowest spring average temperature since 2018.

Total precipitation in the Spring was above normal over 56 percent of the Arctic and was the fifth highest average since 1950, almost 8 percent above the 1991-2020 baseline average (Fig. 4). As always, there were big variations in precipitation in short distances even after taking into account orographic influences, which are “build into” the climatology. This spring, while much of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago had much above normal precipitation, northern and central Baffin Island were quite dry. The other large dry area was in the Russian far northeast.

The mid-atmosphere for Spring 2026 (Fig. 5) showed three low centers that anchored the areas that were especially cool at the surface. Ridging is evident over far northeast Russia, corresponding with the above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation in this region. The high surface temperatures over the Nordic Arctic did not correspond with a discrete high center (in the three-month average) but rather saw higher than normal heights in the prevailing westerly flow.