November Anomalies

Below are maps showing the November temperature and precipitation anomalies at some primary observing stations across the state.  The area of each circle indicates how unusual the month's conditions were, as measured by the anomaly in standard deviations for temperature and the percentile rank for precipitation (based on the 1981-2010 normals).  In the temperature map, the circle in the legend indicates the size of a 1 standard deviation anomaly, and in the precipitation legend, the circle size corresponds to a precipitation total that was outside the range of observations in 1981-2010.

The monthly temperature averages were fairly unremarkable for most of the state, with the largest departure from normal being at Cold Bay (+1.4 SD) and McGrath (+1.1 SD).  Interior Alaska saw much above normal temperatures in the first half of the month, but colder than normal conditions emerged after mid-month.

Precipitation was well above normal over most of western, interior, and northern Alaska; Bettles had their third wettest November of record, Gulkana their fourth wettest, and Fairbanks their fifth wettest.  Barrow experienced yet another month of above-normal precipitation, the ninth in a row; the year-to-date precipitation in Barrow is now the third highest on record.