Objective Comments and Analysis - All Science, No Politics
Primary Author Richard James
2010-2013 Author Rick Thoman
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Barrow no-freeze
Amazingly, Barrow STILL has not been below freezing. The low Tuesday Sep 20th was 32F, and there was 0.3 inches of snow in the early morning. The streak of temperatures at or above 32F now stands at 83 days. Wow.
Barrow actually lies within the warmest geographical region in the North Slope. The western part of the state, and any continental landmass in general, is always significantly much colder than the eastern counterpart. Barter Island, Kaktovik, Umiat, and Franklin Bluffs have been below freezing since early this month.
Because of it's quasi-peninsula location, Barrow is somewhat unique on the Slope, and I would agree that Barrow is about the warmest place, climatologically speaking, in winter, though in summer it is by far the coolest place due to limited direction for land winds. Compare Atqasuk and Barrow any week June-August.
Several points: 1) the "streak" is only comparing Barrow with its own climate record, no other place, so its geographic relation to any place else is not relevant.
2) other places on the North Slope have been below freezing this season, but not by much. The low temp for September so far (thru Sep 22) at both the Umiat RAWS and Sagwon SNOTEL has had just 30F, Otuk Creek (Ivotuk) 29F in the past week, Barter Island/Kaktovik (the same place) is 34F as I write this Thursday afternoon, the USGS sites at Ikpikpuk, Inigok and Fish Creek (near Nuiqsut) all have had lows only right at 32F thus far this month. At Umiat, the lowest daily max temp thru the 21st is 37F,a and the high was 60F as recently as Sep 12th.
BTW, what's your data source for Franklin Bluffs? UAF Water Resources site there has no online data since 2009.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBarrow actually lies within the warmest geographical region in the North Slope. The western part of the state, and any continental landmass in general, is always significantly much colder than the eastern counterpart. Barter Island, Kaktovik, Umiat, and Franklin Bluffs have been below freezing since early this month.
ReplyDeleteTrung,
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comments.
Because of it's quasi-peninsula location, Barrow is somewhat unique on the Slope, and I would agree that Barrow is about the warmest place, climatologically speaking, in winter, though in summer it is by far the coolest place due to limited direction for land winds. Compare Atqasuk and Barrow any week June-August.
Several points:
1) the "streak" is only comparing Barrow with its own climate record, no other place, so its geographic relation to any place else is not relevant.
2) other places on the North Slope have been below freezing this season, but not by much. The low temp for September so far (thru Sep 22) at both the Umiat RAWS and Sagwon SNOTEL has had just 30F, Otuk Creek (Ivotuk) 29F in the past week, Barter Island/Kaktovik (the same place) is 34F as I write this Thursday afternoon, the USGS sites at Ikpikpuk, Inigok and Fish Creek (near Nuiqsut) all have had lows only right at 32F thus far this month. At Umiat, the lowest daily max temp thru the 21st is 37F,a and the high was 60F as recently as Sep 12th.
BTW, what's your data source for Franklin Bluffs? UAF Water Resources site there has no online data since 2009.
Rick
Hi Rick, This is my response to your question about the data source I used for Franklin Bluffs. Please visit the following link. Thanks
ReplyDeletehttp://ine.uaf.edu/werc/data/eei-dot/stations/dbr5/current-include.html
Trung,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for the link.
Rick