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| Courtesy NCEP |
I don't want to say it, but here it is: the numerical models are increasingly suggesting the threat of rain in Fairbanks-land Sunday into Monday. Here is the GFS forecast from Wednesday valid 3pm AST Sunday. Notice the flow from just northwest of Hawai'i right into Interior Alaska. Now it will be a close shave on whether the flow aloft will be southerly enough allow for chinook drying in Fairbanks: that scenario is likely in Delta, or if it will stay just cold enough for the precipitation to be mostly or wholly snow as is likely at, say, Tanana. Stay tuned.
Oh my goodness, winters in Alaska are so pathetic for its latitude. Meanwhile, Minnesota will be 20 degrees F colder.
ReplyDeleteDecember 2012:
DeleteInternational Falls, MN mean temperature +11.4F
Fairbanks, AK: mean temperature -17.3F, not even in the top ten coldest Decembers.
Coldest month of record at International Falls is Jan 1982, mean temp -10.2, which just about the January normal for Fairbanks.
Fairbanks is 300 miles from open ocean. International Falls is ~1300 miles from open ocean.
Pineapple express commeth? Just drove back from Wasilla today with new car. Freezing rain from Wasilla to Talketna, then again south of Cantwell. Had about 1/4" on the front of the car.
ReplyDeleteIf I were flying it would have been a "get out of it" moment.
Weather is often a balancing act...cold Oct-Dec, now warm early 2013, not sure of the mechanism. That's how it was last winter as well.
Gary