Fairbanks Soaker

From Fairbanks northward there has been a decent amount of rain the past few days. Nothing extreme, but enough, over a long enough period of time to soak in and help boast soil moisture. Coming right before the 4th of July holiday weekend, the timing is good too. Here are some rough totals the past five days:

Angel Creek RAWS: 0.7 inches
Fairbanks Airport: 0.8 inches
Eielson AFB: 0.8 inches
Keystone Ridge: 1.4 inches
Munson Ridge: 2.3 inches
Chatanika River RAWS: 3.2 inches

As of this morning's situation report from the Alaska Fire Service, 262600 acres have burned in Alaska thus far this season. There's potentially still six weeks left in the active fire season, but a good soaking is a good way to be going into July

Midnight Sun

FAA webcam shot from Prudhoe Bay, looking north at 201AM, which is almost exactly solar midnight.

Ice View from Saturday

Here is a MODIS image from the Terra satellite of the northern quarter of Alaska and adjacent oceans, taken Saturday. This nicely shows the edge of pack ice, some shorefast ice and ice in some of the bigger lakes north of 71N. Oh yeah, and lots of green too!

Deep Storm in the Western Aleutians

This analysis from the Ocean Prediction Center valid 10 AM Saturday shows the strong storm that is now in the southern Bering Sea. A pretty deep low for late June, it brought gusts to around 50 mph at Shemya early Saturday, and similar winds Sunday morning to Adak.

Big Lightning Day

There were more than 4300 lightning strikes Saturday across a fairly narrow across the Interior stretching from the upper Tanana Valley to the upper Kobuk valley. In spite of deep moisture, rainfall amounts were mostly underwhelming, generally a quarter inch or less, though there were isolated reports of around an inch of rain. At Keystone Ridge, it thundered intermittently from 6pm to 11pm.

Rains in the Eastern Interior

Eastern Interior Alaska was soaked Wednesday night and Thursday with widespread moderate to heavy rain. Above are hydrographs from the Fortymile River at the Taylor Highway and Birch Creek near 101 Mile Steese Highway. The Fortymile is about to go over flood stage. The much smaller Birch Creek has already crested.

Total rainfall Wednesday and Thursday include…

Ben Creek RAWS (above Coal Creek on the Yukon River): 2.58 inches
Birch Creek RAWS (east of central above the Steese Highway Bridge): 1.43 inches
Chicken RAWS: 1.07 inches
Preacher Creek RAWS (northeast of Circle City): 0.81 inches

The rain got about as far west as the east side of Fairbanks, with most places east of town receiving around a tenth of an inch of rain early Thursday evening. There was no appreciable rain from Fairbanks westward.

Active Lightning Day

Deep moisture streaming westward from the northern Yukon fueled the most active lightning day of the season thus far, with more than 4000 strikes. Virtually all the strikes were in the far northeastern Interior. There was a fair bit of rain with these storms, but some fire starts are very likely.

Retreating Sea Ice

Here is a NOAA-19 Polar Orbiter photo (from NWS Alaska Region) taken early Monday afternoon, with clear skies over much of Arctic Alaska. The ice edge is very well defined, with only a little shorefast ice on the coast and a few chucks in the open southern Chukchi Sea large enough to show up in this 1.6 km resolution image. There is also a little ice left in Kotzebue sound south of Cape Espenberg. Needless to say, this is much less ice than use to be normal for mid-June. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the total ice cover as of June 19th across the entire Arctic is easily the lowest ever since satellite measurement of Arctic ice cover started in 1979.

Soaking Rains Show Up in the Rivers

Here is a hydrograph of the level of the Chena River near the Wendell Street Bridge. The big rise late Thursday and Friday, more than three feet, is more than I would have expected, given that there wasn't that much rain. Even the Munson Ridge SnoTel, at 3100' MSL south of Chena Hot Springs got less than an inch of rain on Wednesday.

The Tall One

The mountain from Wonder Lake Rangers Station Friday morning.

In Lower Tanana Athabascam, Denaathi, in Koyukon Athabascan Denaali, "the tall one"

Drought Breaker?

All of the Fairbanks area has received rain over the past several days, but amounts vary widely, as is usual for this time of year. The wettest areas have been on the east side of town: North Pole picked up 1.1 inches of rain Tuesday and Wednesday. Much less on the northwest side of town, including here on Keystone Ridge and on the Hastings Fire. Just 0.14 inches of rain here Tuesday and Wednesday. The Airport has had 0.20 inches. So while not a drought breaker, the rain definitely helps in the short term. In order to squash the fire season, we need frequent rains over a several week period. Drought

Here is a photo looking north from our house about 130am ADT Thursday. In spite of it being 44F, mosquitoes were still nasty.

Summer Snow

Snow this Monday morning in the Brooks Range. Here's a 718am photo from the FAA webcam at Anaktuvuk Pass. The snow has made it onto the south side of the crest, with 34F and (evidently) mixed rain and snow at Arctic Village.






Updated:

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK
1023 AM AKDT MON JUN 13 2011
....SNOW OVER THE BROOKS RANGE

SNOW OVERNIGHT AND MONDAY HAS ACCUMULATED IN THE BROOKS RANGE. A
SMALL ACCUMULATION ON VEGETATION HAS OCCURRED AT THE CHANDALAR DOT
CAMP AT DALTON HIGHWAY MILE 239. AN AUTOMATED WEATHER STATION AT
THE TOP OF ATIGUN PASS ON THE DALTON HIGHWAY REPORTED ABOUT THREE
INCHES OF NEW SNOW AS OF 9AM MONDAY. SMALL ACCUMULATIONS HAVE ALSO
BEEN NOTED AT ANAKTUVUK PASS...TOOLIK LAKE AND THE SAG RIVER DOT
CAMP AT DALTON HIGHWAY MILE 306.

LIGHT SNOWFALL IN THE BROOKS RANGE IN JUNE IS NOT UNCOMMON AND
WILL MELT AT ROAD AND COMMUNITY ELEVATIONS THIS AFTERNOON AND
TONIGHT.

$$
RT JUN 11

Showers

Showers in the Fairbanks area on Saturday, as is often case this time of year, brought a wide range of rainfall amounts:

Fort Knox Mine: 0.44 inches
Aurora (Co-op): 0.21 inches
Fairbanks Airport: 0.16 inches
Keystone Ridge: 0.05
UAF West Ridge: 0.01 inches
Goldstream Creek: Trace

A Summer's Day

Nice view looking northeast from the Nenana Airport Friday afternoon. The higher humidites and rain Thursday have put a temporary damper on Interior Fires, though burning will pick up this weekend. As of Friday morning total acreage burned is now up to 242K.

Some rain better than no rain

Through Wednesday, June 8th, only 0.08 inches of rain at fallen at Fairbanks Airport since May 1st. This is the lowest total during that time since 1915. Rain has increased across the area Thursday morning, with some places, though not in town, picking up a tenth of an inch or more of rain. A few areas on the east side of Fairbanks are pushing a quarter inch. Not much, but we'll take all we can can, with the Hastings fire now up over 24000 acres.

Updated: as of late afternoon the rain is about over. Some totals since midnight included

Fairbanks Airport : 0.08 inches
Keystone Ridge: 0.08 inches
Caribou Peak: 0.10 (north of Poker Flats)
Goldstream Hills PWS: 0.17 inches
Fairbanks RAWS: 0.18 inches (on Fort Wainwright)
Bias Drive PWS: 0.22 inches (near Weller School)
Chatanika River RAWS: 0.26 inches (9 miles NW of Murphy Dome)
Gilmore Creek: 0.32 inches (near Fox)
Munson Ridge SNOTEL: 0.41 inches (south of Chena Hot Spring, 3100' MSL)

Not anywhere near enough, but it's a start.

Alaska Fire Seasons

Here a plot of total acreage burned in Alaska over the past 70 years. Plainly, a few big seasons are sandwiched between summers with much less activity. However, the frequency of "big years" has doubled since the late 1980s. This year is a near certainty to exceed a million acres, which would make this the first time in the period of record with three summers in a row with a million plus acres burned.

Fire Stats

There are now seven fires so far this season in Alaska that exceed 10,000 acres, the latest being the Hastings fire, just north of Murphy Dome. The total acreage burned as of Sunday morning was 213,619 acres. This is still short of the 260,024 acres that had burned last year by May 31st, though that was extreme for so early in the season. Photo of the Hastings Fire burning above the Chatanika River, taken Friday June 03, from InciWeb.

Chilly Morning

Updated:
Skies cleared Saturday evening and a dry air mass allowed rural valleys to cool sharply. Overnight lows included 29F at Angel Creek RAWS, 30F at both the Goldstream Creek and Goldstream Valley Bottom co-ops and 34F at the PWS in Woodsmoke subdivision near North Pole (North Pole co-op 37F). Not as cold in more urban areas and at elevation, with 43F at Fairbanks Airport and 46F at Cleary Summit

Shorefast Ice at Barrow

Here is the view from Barrow Saturday evening June 4th. The shorecast ice is holding, with meltwater on top. The dark line at the horizon in the upper left is the open water beyond the shorefast ice. Image from the UAF Sea Ice group.

Another May Stat

For Fairbanks, not only was May 25-31 the warmest May week of record, but the second half of the month, May 16-31, was the warmest second half of May of record, with a mean temperature of 62.4F. For the the five warmest second halves of May have occurred since 1990.

May: Consistently Dry, Bipolar Temperatures

Fairbanks Airport wound up with 0.04 inches precip for the month of May, making this the driest May in the Weather Bureau/NWS era (since 1930) and the third driest since 1905 (the 1971-2000 normal is 0.64 inches). However, because all the precip was showery, even early in the month, amounts varied significantly, though everywhere was below normal. Here on the ridge, the monthly total of 0.38 was only the lowest since 2003.

Temperatures though flipped right at mid-month, going from near to below normal through the 15th then consistently much above normal thereafter. The average temperature the last week of the month of 66.7F is the warmest May week of record in 106 years of obervations.