It'd be kind of nifty if IJIS happened to gain exactly those 137,294k km2 before turning back downward.
Then 2015 would set not two, but three records: lowest max, earliest max, and latest max.
I highly doubt it, and it looks like this increase is spurious, since it coincides with storm-related "false ice" near Nova Scotia...
What's false about the ice near Nova Scotia? If you're talking about ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and out around the eastern side of Cape Breton, it's quite real. Here's a MODIS image from a couple of days ago:
I also highly doubt that IJIS will exactly tie its February max, but just because the odds of exactly hitting one particular number, to the nearest 1km2, are quite low.
But the increase is not "spurious", it's happened for three days now. Is it likely to continue? I dunno, most people here are probably better at interpreting the weather forecast than I am.
In a simplistic statistical sense, 2 of the past 12 years have seen enough increase in ice during the coming week to put us back above the February max. So ignoring the weather, the odds are about 1 in 6. Not likely, but not impossible.