Sea ice

Lower temperatures and sustained north winds have pushed sea ice southward on the Alaska side of the Bering Sea, while mild temperatures for mid-winter and frequent south winds have kept ice extent much lower than normal on the Russian side of the Bering.
For Alaska waters, the ice extent is the highest for this point in the season since 2022. For the southern Seward Peninsula coast, north winds push ice away from the coast and combined with the timing of the high tide after the wind slackened, was likely the driver of the break-off of a large area of shorefast ice west of the Nome Port on the evening of January 6.
As we’ve seen several times in recent years, comparatively high ice extent in the Alaskan Bering Sea does not automatically translate to stable ice conditions in the northern Bering Sea. In March 2022, winds pushed ice all the way to the north shore of St. George Island in the Pribilofs for the first time in years, but at the same time sea ice was thin and weak across much of the northern Bering Sea and in Norton Sound, mainly because of the persistent wind.
Of course, we’ve got a long way to go in the sea ice season, as ice extent can expand or contract substantially depending on prevailing wind direction.
Historically the maximum Bering Sea ice extent occurs in March, though not infrequently occurs in February, which happened most recently in 2023 and most of the time is between about 1.3 and twice the early January extent.