I am not a scientist. I haven't even been watching very closely for an entire year, but I've been glancing at the situation in the Arctic for 20 years. Eyes front now.
This doesn't look like a ridge, to me. This looks like a short circuit. The Arctic Ocean is warmer than the land. What's happening now looks, again to an untrained eye, like the polar cell is being torn in two.
Whatever's left of cold air after this will certainly return to the Arctic in mid-May, according to pattern. I'm hopeful more is left than appears to be in the forecast weather models. It's uncomfortable to see GFS runs that look like mid-June of 2016 before May of 2019.
Still, the forecast temperature anomalies don't look insane. This tormented flow pattern has somehow kept cold within 80N all winter. I thought we'd see an ice free north pole in 2017 and that didn't happen. Who knows, I'm just an outsider, but this has the feeling of something new & unique & damning.