All is right with the world, or at least as it concerns Interior Alaska inversions. With clear skies, temperatures in the valleys have been falling for more than 12 hours now, while temperatures have been slowly rising at elevation. The inversion is not yet especially steep, so elevations where appreciable numbers of people live are still chilly, but mostly warmer than it was Monday afternoon:
Low elevation min temperatures through 9am include:
Fairbanks Airport: -44F
Fort Wainwright: -44F
Eielson AFB: -42F
Goldstream Creek: -42F
UAF West Ridge: -38F
High elevation temperatures around 9am:
Munson Ridge: -7F
Clearly Summit: -8F
Keystone Ridge: -15F
Goldstream Toboggan: -27F
Are there any realtime or close to realtime data on the noaa website (or anything else I suppose) that can give a person an idea of what the inversion is doing?
ReplyDeletePS: I am really enjoying your blog....
Hi grcg,
ReplyDeleteThe most comprehensive website for northern Alaska weather observations is at Mesowest:
http://raws.wrh.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/roman/raws_ca_monitor.cgi?rawsflag=290&state=AFG&type=0&orderby=n&day1=18&month1=8&year1=2009&hour1=18&timeobs=6
Fairbanks-land is Zone 222.
There are several reliable personal weather stations (PWS) that are at around 1100' MSL that you can use to judge the difference between the Airport and the hills.
Alternately, you can use the Weather Underground WunderMap to find additional PWS stations that are at elevation, and this also includes several North Pole area PWS (Woodsmoke is the most reliable).
Hope this helps
Rick