Recent freezing progress as shown on the NSIDC arctic chart (
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) has been above average. From a mid-November deviation from average of about 4 standard deviations, it appears to be now around 3 SDs.
Looking at the Sea Ice extent charts and comparing with the November ice extent chart, one major difference is that Hudson Bay has mostly frozen. Hudson Bay has an area of 1.23 million km
2, and it appears to be about 80% frozen. There has been 1.53 million km
2 freeze since 1st December, so perhaps 2/3rds of that is from Hudson Bay.
Therefore my guess is that within a week or so there will be a change in the freeze progress, and we will see a change similar to the 2012 chart with much slower freeze rate to the peak next year. This is when we will see the true effect of the export of fractured ice through Fram and lack of freeze in the Chukchi Sea.