Arctic Ice Building up in November

The image is an animation of MASIE ice charts over the last three weeks from Oct.1 to yesterday, Nov.20, 2019. At the top is Kara Sea icing, along with Barents, both higher than the 12 year average at this time. On the left Laptev and East Siberian have filled with ice. Chukchi on the bottom was mostly water, but in 3 weeks tripled from 170k km2 up to 518k km2, now 54% of March maximum. Bottom right shows Beaufort Sea and CAA filled with ice. On the right, Hudson Bay has begun freezing down its west coast, while Baffin Bay is freezing southward. Both of these bays are slower than average and a main reason 2019 NH ice extent remains below average presently.

MASIE daily results for November show 2019 ice recovering steadily, reducing the deficit to average.
Note that Arctic ice recovers strongly in November going on average (2007 through 2018 inclusive) from 8.6M km2 to 11.1M km2. 2019 ended October as much as 654k km2 below average mid-October, but now shows a deficit of 296k km2. All of tracks appear to be converging except for 2016, a much slower pace of refreezing.

The table for day 324 shows distribution of ice across the regions making up the Arctic ocean.

Region	2019324	Day 324 Average	2019-Ave.	2007324	2019-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	9888503	10184933	-296430	10069799	-181296
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1063360	1066882	-3523	1046467	16892
(2) Chukchi_Sea	517822	702499	-184678	622683	-104861
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1083955	1077768	6187	1059995	23959
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	897094	751	897845	0
(5) Kara_Sea	807562	674120	133443	760883	46680
(6) Barents_Sea	255306	178393	76913	130915	124391
(7) Greenland_Sea	502301	490127	12174	546284	-43983
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	362245	600845	-238600	532589	-170343
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	854282	851989	2294	852142	2141
(10) Hudson_Bay	256575	374668	-118093	380911	-124336
(11) Central_Arctic	3206293	3171926	34367	3184762	21531

Presently 2019 ice extent according to MASIE is 296k km2 (3%) below the 12 year average and 181k km2 less than 2007. Most of the deficit to average is in Chukchi Sea, along with Baffin and Hudson Bays refreezing slowly this year. Other places are close to normal, with Kara and Barents Seas with surpluses.

For context, note that the average maximum has been 15M, so on average the extent shrinks to 30% of the March high before growing back the following winter.