Thursday, March 31, 2016

Statewide Extremes

Extreme weather contrasts are continuing across Alaska today, as some places experience high summer conditions while others are locked in winter.  The warmth in the south and east is the really big story, as a new all-time state record high temperature for the month of March has been observed at Klawock in the far southeast: 71°F.  Never before has 70°F or higher been recorded in March in Alaska.  Several other locations have set all-time March high temperature records by large margins, including (data through 00 UTC):

Homer: at least 59°F (previous record 54°F set last year)
Cordova: at least 68°F (previous record 62°F in 1913; 59°F in 1965 was the record in the NWS/Weather Bureau era)
Eagle airport: at least 59°F (previous record 53°F in 2010)  [UPDATE: Rick Thoman sends word that Eagle's COOP site reports in the morning, so technically this will go down as the high temperature for April 1st]

Each of these stations has long periods of record.  In Cordova and Klawock these temperatures would be unusual for the height of summer.  Here's this morning's 500mb analysis, showing the intense ridge over the southeast.


Here's a webcam image from Klawock at the time of a 70°F reading from the airport ASOS:



Meanwhile a bona fide winter storm is affecting parts of the west coast; Shaktoolik has seen increasingly heavy snowfall today with sustained winds over 40mph and temperatures in the single digits.  Here's a simple animation of the deteriorating conditions during the middle part of the day.


Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Record Rainfall

In what could hardly be more unusual weather for the time of year, valley-level Fairbanks residents have endured rainy conditions in the past couple of days.  The 2-day total of 0.35" is the most rain ever observed in the month of March without a measurable accumulation of snow; the previous record was 0.34" on March 7, 1921 (but that event occurred at the end of a major storm with 16" of snow in previous days).

Remarkably, prior to this week there were only 9 calendar days in March since 1930 with 0.05" or more of rain and a trace or less of snowfall in Fairbanks; 6 of these days were in the 1930's.  We added two more such days on Monday and yesterday.  In and of itself some light rain or rain/snow mix is not too uncommon in Fairbanks in March, but to have significant rainfall with no snow is rare.

The 500mb charts below show the mid-tropospheric conditions at 4am AKDT on Tuesday (top) and 4am today (bottom).  The pattern looks just about perfect for bringing very unusual warmth along with precipitation to central interior Alaska: the air mass source is far to the south, but there is west-southwesterly flow across the interior in association with a strong frontal zone.



Reflecting the strength of the frontal zone, the temperature gradient across northern Alaska has been nothing short of amazing in the past few days.  While Fairbanks has experienced near-record warmth, the North Slope has been colder than would be normal for the dead of winter; Deadhorse airport dropped to -38°F this morning, and the temperature has struggled to get above -20°F in brilliant sunshine this afternoon.

Here are some splendid images from the Chandalar Shelf FAA webcam yesterday afternoon.  This is what March is supposed to look like in interior Alaska.






Monday, March 28, 2016

Thawing Commences

Continued unusual warmth is bringing an early start to the spring thaw in Fairbanks.  Today is the 4th day in a row with a daily mean temperature above freezing, and the airport snow depth reading has already dropped from 14" on Thursday to 11" yesterday.  Other than the great February 1943 chinook event, 4 such consecutive days have only occurred earlier in March 1965 and March 1998.  The 1997-98 winter was of course the last very strong El NiƱo winter; it was also the year of the second earliest breakup on record in Nenana.  The Tanana River ice isn't looking too healthy today, as a matter of fact:


Looking at snow conditions in the hills east and northeast of Fairbanks, the snowpack water content is not far from normal at mid-elevations and is slightly above normal at higher elevations.  Here are the latest snow water equivalent measurements from the SNOTEL sites, compared to the 1981-2010 median:

Teuchet Creek (1640'): 3.7" vs 3.8"
Monument Creek (1850'): 4.7" vs 4.6"
Little Chena Ridge (2000'): 3.9" vs 4.7"
Mt Ryan (2800'): 5.6" vs 5.0"
Munson Ridge (3100'): 7.4" vs 6.7"

The relatively healthy state of the snowpack is a reflection of the snowy start to the season in September (the early snow never melted in the hills) and November.  Nevertheless, the snowpack is actually the lowest for the date since 2010; this is also true of the in-town Fairbanks SNOTEL site.

Looking farther afield, here's the March 1 snow analysis (presumably snow water equivalent) from NRCS, for this year and last year.  The south-central part of the state is not as badly off as last year (except at very low elevation), but snowpack deficits are pretty pervasive in the southeastern interior this year.



Saturday, March 26, 2016

More on Howard Pass

In last week's discussion of Brooks Range wind chill, I mentioned the fact that temperature tends to decrease as wind speed increases at Howard Pass.  An inverse relationship between wind speed and temperature is very different from what most Alaska residents experience - in most locations it's coldest when the wind is calm - so I thought it would be worth taking a closer look at the Howard Pass data.  I obtained the hourly observations (2012-present) and looked at the data from several angles.

First, the distribution of wind speed in December through February (see below) does not show anything too unusual, although it's obviously a windy place; the wind speed exceeds 40 mph about 15% of the time in winter.  And as we know, very high wind speeds sometimes occur.  Last Saturday's sustained wind speed of 98 mph (during the 7-8 pm hour) was the highest on record for the station; this measurement probably wouldn't have been possible without the new robust anemometer that was installed last summer.


The distribution of hourly temperature measurements is more unusual, showing a double peak, with the temperature most often falling between -10 and -20°F.


If we look at the joint distribution of temperature and wind speed, we see very clearly that the highest wind speeds are invariably associated with below-normal temperatures, and in fact significantly below-normal temperatures hardly ever occur without strong winds.  For temperatures of -30°F or below, the wind speed is typically above 40 mph.  We also see that calm winds are uncommon when temperatures are well above normal, so there is a minimum in median wind speed for temperatures near the climatological normal.


Looking at hourly wind chill values, the distribution shows a pronounced double peak, and the most common wind chill is between -40 and -50°F.  This is quite remarkable for a location at only 2062' elevation (although it is above the Arctic Circle).  Bear in mind that wind chill is undefined for wind speeds less than 3mph, so quite a number of calm-wind observations are excluded from the distribution.



Another way to look at the joint distribution of temperature and wind is to plot a kind of wind rose diagram - see below.  The red line shows the median wind speed for each point on the compass, and the blue line shows the median temperature.  Interestingly there are two peaks in wind speed; the primary one occurs when the winds are from the north-northeast, through the pass, and these winds import cold air from the North Slope, leading to extreme wind chill - the median temperature for this wind direction is -16°F.  The secondary peak in wind speed occurs for east-northeasterly winds, and in this scenario warm air reaches Howard Pass; the median temperature is about +20°F.


Here are two images showing the location of the Howard Pass RAWS relative to the surrounding topography (click to enlarge); in the first image, the Howard Pass site is the one with the red "20" next to it, at the northeast edge of the Noatak River basin.




It would be very interesting to look at the other RAWS sites scattered around the western Brooks Range, to see if any others show the same kind of behavior.  I plan on doing this when I have time to obtain and parse all the hourly data.  For now, I just looked at the data from Anaktuvuk Pass - see below.  Surprisingly, Anaktuvuk Pass appears to be remarkably non-windy in winter; the absence of strong winds in this data almost looks unrealistic, although a topographic map reveals that the site is actually very sheltered from most directions.  There is a slight increase of wind speed with warmer temperatures and there's no evidence of the cold northerly gales that are observed at Howard Pass.




For comparison, the Umiat RAWS on the North Slope shows behavior that is more typical of low-elevation Alaska in winter; wind speeds are typically light, and higher wind speeds are associated with relatively warm temperatures.


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Rate of Warming

A quick warm-up has brought Fairbanks from a chilly low temperature of -20°F on Friday to at least 42°F today.  Friday's low was 18°F below normal, the coldest in relative terms since November 19 and only the 4th day this winter with a low temperature more than 15°F below normal.  More than 10 times as many days have been equally unusual on the warm side (low temperature more than 15°F above normal).

The seasonal normal temperatures in Fairbanks are also increasingly very rapidly at this time of year.  As seen in the charts below, late March sees an acceleration in the rate of increase of normal temperatures, and the peak warming rate (0.8°F per day) occurs in early April.  Notice how the temperatures aloft show very little warming until the end of March; nearly all of the upper-air warming occurs in the months of April, May, and June.





The late March acceleration in surface warming is not caused by loss of snow cover and decreased albedo, as the average melt-off date is April 24 (1981-present), and the record earliest melt-off is April 3 (1970).  I suspect the increased warming has more to do with average cloud cover; until early March, the average cloud cover follows a decreasing trend, allowing for more efficient nighttime cooling.  However, cloud cover reaches its seasonal minimum on about March 10 and then begins a gradual increase.  The change of trend in radiational cooling is probably at least partly responsible for the increased warming trend, as cloud cover is still positively correlated with temperature at this time of year.

Looking at spring warming rates around the state, the fastest-warming sites are as follows (based on peak 7-day warming):

Circle Hot Springs  +6.8F/week
Central #2 COOP  +6.7F/week
Eagle AP  +6.0F/week
Umiat, Prudhoe Bay, Northway  +5.9F/week

The peak spring warming rates are a little smaller in magnitude than the peak autumn cooling rates, which are greatest at the following sites:

Woodsmoke COOP  -7.1F/week
Central #2 COOP  -6.8F/week
Chicken COOP  -6.6F/week
Little Chena River COOP  -6.6F/week
North Pole and Fairbanks AP #2  -6.4F/week

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Brooks Range Wind Chill

Extreme wind chills are showing up today in the Brooks Range, as a 1052mb anticyclone north of Alaska has created a very strong pressure gradient that is transporting cold air south across the northern and western parts of the state.  Anaktuvuk Pass (2100' elevation) has been hovering at or below -20°F with sustained winds close to 30mph, resulting in wind chill in the -50's.  Of course the notorious Howard Pass RAWS (2062'), 130 miles to the west, is faring much worse, with sustained winds reported as high as 83mph this morning combined with a temperature of -29°F, leading to a wind chill of -80°F.



We've discussed the extreme environment of Howard Pass many times before on this blog (just enter "Howard Pass" in the search box).  Today's highest reported wind gust of 88mph is not even the highest reported this winter: 93mph winds were measured on January 16.  However, today's wind chill of -80°F appears to be the lowest of the winter so far; -70°F was recorded on January 19 and -76°F on December 4.  [Correction March 21: the hourly data from December 4 show a wind chill of -82°F.]  It's nice that the anemometer has survived the extreme conditions (so far) this season - it was destroyed in the past two winters.

The chart below gives a sense of how frequently these extreme conditions are observed at Howard Pass; I've calculated a daily wind chill value based on the mean daily wind speed and mean daily temperature.  Daily minimum wind chill values would often be lower, because temperature tends to decrease as wind speed increases in these northerly wind events at Howard Pass (indeed that is why the wind chill gets so low).  The chart shows that wind chill values of -60°F are hardly unusual at Howard Pass, even in a very mild winter such as this one.  If the NPS keeps maintaining the station, it's only a matter of time before the U.S. national wind chill record is broken again.


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Seasonal Forecast

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center will release their seasonal forecast for April and for the April-May-June period tomorrow, and interested parties can listen in to Rick Thoman's forecast briefing here.  Last month I posted a seasonal forecast from NOAA's Climate Forecast System (CFS) model, and it seems worthwhile to do the same again; perhaps I'll make this a regular feature of the blog.

The map below shows the latest CFS probability forecast for April mean temperature, and I'm sure nobody is surprised to see a high probability of unusual warmth continuing throughout Alaska during April.  With a strongly positive PDO phase, it's inevitable that the forecast will show warm in southern and southeastern Alaska, and the odds are quite high that this will be correct.  The forecast is calibrated, meaning that the probabilities should reflect the true likelihood of occurrence.


Here are the forecasts for precipitation, 10m wind speed, and solar radiation; the signals are much weaker, because the model has less ability to predict these variables.  Interestingly the model expects solar radiation to be lower than normal in much of interior and northern Alaska in April, i.e. relatively cloudy conditions are somewhat more likely than normal.  It isn't expected to be wet, however.  Parts of the North Slope are somewhat likely to be windier than normal.





The chart below shows a forecast of the complete probability distribution for April mean temperature in Fairbanks.  This is an exceedance probability curve, so you can read off the probability of exceeding any particular threshold for the April mean temperature.  The panel on the right side shows the tercile probabilities, which heavily favor unusual warmth.  Finally, at the bottom we can see that the most likely value of the April temperature is 2.9°C or 37.2°F, which would be 4.3°F above normal.


Finally, a quick look at the three-month season (April-May-June) shows the same story: for most of interior and northern Alaska, it is more likely than not that the season will be significantly warmer than normal.  I'll post the CPC forecast maps for comparison tomorrow.


Update: here are the CPC maps for April.  The CPC's above-normal temperature probability is not quite as high as in the CFS forecast - for example, CPC's 60+% probability covers only southern Alaska, whereas the CFS shows it covering most of the interior.  The increased chance of above-normal precipitation in western and northern Alaska is attributed to "anomalously open sea ice and warm open ocean temperatures", which certainly makes sense.



And the maps for April-May-June; here the CPC has boosted the warm probabilities, but the CFS actually shows the probabilities retreating a bit in the south for the three-month period.




Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Statewide Minimum Temperature

This winter's persistent and very unusual warmth in Alaska has garnered some attention in the media lately, and I've seen a few mentions (e.g. here) of the fact that the lowest temperature observed in the state (so far) this winter was above -50°F for the first time on record.  The near-minus-50 reading on Christmas Day at the Kanuti Lake SCAN site just about qualifies to meet the threshold, but regardless the absence of deep cold is most unusual.  Here's a chart of the statewide minimum temperature for each winter since 1900, according to the GHCN-Daily dataset; this includes many RAWS and SNOTEL sites as well as regular airport and COOP sites (but not certain others like the Kanuti Lake site):


It's interesting to note that there is no long-term trend in the statewide minimum temperature, but lest we conclude that extreme cold is just as common as it used to be, we must recognize that there are now far more observing sites than there used to be; so the chance of picking up an exceptionally cold reading has increased greatly over time.  But this raises an interesting question: what do we mean by "far more observing sites"?  Has the number of stations doubled in the past 50 years?  Tripled?

The chart below shows an estimate of the number of stations that might be considered candidates for observing the state's minimum temperature in any given winter.  This is a subset of all of Alaska's climate reporting sites: many of them have no chance of being the state's coldest, so there's no point including them in this analysis.  My simple and admittedly crude method to categorize the stations was to simply exclude sites that have never reached -50°F or below; for my purpose here, any location that has reported -50°F or lower is a candidate to be included in the analysis.

From the subset of candidate locations, I then examined all sites that were active in each winter (at least 90% complete data from November-March) and finally removed clusters of densely-spaced stations by applying a minimum separation criterion.  The last step is designed to correct for the fact that there are clusters of stations in certain areas (e.g. Fairbanks) in the modern era, and the temperatures reported within each cluster are highly correlated; so it doesn't make sense to count them all as independent additions to the observing network.


If we don't filter the stations by separation (i.e. include them all), we find that the number of candidate locations almost tripled from the middle part of the 20th century (around 50 sites) to an apparent peak of 141 sites in 2009.  However, as we remove sites that are close to each other, the modern increase is less dramatic; for a minimum separation of 10km, the number of stations has approximately doubled since 1950.  Nevertheless, it's clear that the state has enjoyed a large increase in the number of sites (driven largely by the RAWS and SNOTEL networks, I think), and this is presumably at least part of the explanation for why the statewide minimum temperatures have not increased despite overall warming in Alaska's winter climate.

One other point that stands out to me: note how few stations there were in the early decades of the 20th century, but the statewide minimum nevertheless reached -60°F to -70°F almost every winter.  I'd bet that if we still only had 10 stations active in the colder parts of the state today, the minimum temperature chart would look rather different.

As an aside, here's a map of Alaska GHCN stations categorized by whether or not they have reported -50°F or lower (click to enlarge).  Note that I required at least 10 winters of available data to categorize a station as having NOT reported -50°F, so short-lived stations that never reached -50°F are excluded.


Friday, March 4, 2016

A Most Unusual Winter

In standard meteorological terms, the Northern Hemisphere winter season is defined as December through February, and now that it's in the books it is worth looking at how Fairbanks fared for various aspects of the climate.

First, and obviously, it was very warm and very dry.  The mean temperature of +3.0°F was the 6th highest on record (1930-present), with January and February being somewhat warmer than December; but none of the 3 months was in the top 5 for mean temperature.  More remarkable was the near complete absence of unusual cold; only 3 days (December 5, 6, and 25) had a daily mean temperature more than 10°F below normal.  In contrast, 34 days were more than 10°F warmer than normal.  The lowest daily high temperature (including November) was a mere -9°F, so there was not a single day that remained at or below -10°F from midnight to midnight; this is unprecedented for a whole winter season.  The last such day was February 9 of last year.


Snowfall and liquid-equivalent precipitation were incredibly meager and both were easily the lowest on record.  The totals (0.13" and 2.5" respectively) were less than 10% of normal, which is astounding for a three-month season.  The snow depth remained nearly constant at either 12 or 13" since December 1, which is the least amount of variation ever seen in Fairbanks for the winter season.

Looking at some other variables that are reported by the airport's ASOS platform, the average visibility was the highest on record since the ASOS was introduced in 1997.  That's not a surprise because it hardly snowed at all; there were only 4 days on which visibility of 1 mile or less was observed, and this is a record for 1950-present.  However, cloud cover was only modestly below normal (7th lowest of 19 years).  As Brian showed in a blog post yesterday, the sea-level pressure for December-February was at record low levels across most of the Bering Sea and western Alaska, so ironically it was a very stormy pattern farther to the west and southwest; it was the persistent southerly flow and downsloping that kept Fairbanks so warm and dry.

Speaking of wind speed, the average daily wind speed in Fairbanks was well above normal and appears to be a record for the ASOS era (excluding 2010-2011, which seems to have a lot of missing data).  Only 53% of the ASOS observations reported calm winds in December through February, compared to about 65% in a normal winter and as high as 81% in 1998-1999.

I've discussed previously the low variance of temperature since the beginning of this year, and it's worth noting again here that the December-February variance of daily temperature anomalies was extremely low.  Only 1997-98 had a lower variance - and that was the last big El NiƱo winter.  This winter's standard deviation of 10.6°F compares to a long-term normal of 16°F.

Of course with the astonishing lack of snowfall the variance in snow depth was also extremely low (all-time record), as noted above; so one might be tempted to say this was the most boring winter on record.  It's interesting to look at the long-term trend in winter variance of temperature and snow depth - see the chart below.  Both have decreased in the past few decades, and the decrease in snow depth variance is particularly notable.  In fact the snow depth variance seems to be in a well-established long-term downward trend; every one of the past 16 winters has seen snow depth vary by less than what was normal in the 1930-1970 period.  There might be some influence here from changing measuring practices, but I doubt that would explain the bulk of the change.  It's certainly a topic for further investigation.


For the sake of completeness, here's the NWS summary for February.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK
1053 AM AKST TUE MAR 1 2016

...MONTHLY WEATHER SUMMARY FOR FEBRUARY FOR FAIRBANKS ALASKA...

THE REMARKABLY WARM AND DRY WEATHER PATTERN FOR FAIRBANKS CONTINUES.
FEBRUARY 2016 MUCH LIKE JANUARY 2016 AND DECEMBER 2015 WAS WARMER
THAN NORMAL AND EXCEPTIONALLY DRY. ONLY 0.6 INCHES OF SNOW FELL
DURING THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY AT THE FAIRBANKS AIRPORT WHICH
RANKED AS THE 99TH SNOWIEST OF 105 YEARS OF RECORD. NORMAL SNOWFALL
AT THE FAIRBANKS AIRPORT DURING THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY IS 8.1
INCHES. ALL OF THE 0.6 INCHES OF SNOW FELL ON THE 6TH WHICH WAS
THE HEAVIEST 24 HOUR SNOWFALL FOR THE MONTH. TRACE AMOUNTS OF SNOW
FELL ON 3 OTHER DAYS.

ONLY 0.05 INCHES OF PRECIPITATION FELL AT THE FAIRBANKS AIRPORT IN
FEBRUARY WHICH WAS 0.37 INCHES BELOW THE NORMAL PRECIPITATION OF
0.42 INCHES. THIS RANKS AS THE 8TH DRIEST FEBRUARY OF 105 YEARS OF
RECORD.

THE VERY DRY MONTH OF DECEMBER 2015 COMBINED WITH THE EXCEPTIONALLY
DRY MONTHS OF JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 2016 RANKED AS THE LEAST SNOWY
DECEMBER...JANUARY...FEBRUARY PERIOD ON RECORD WITH ONLY 2.5
INCHES OF SNOW FALLING DURING THOSE THREE MONTHS AT FAIRBANKS.
THE SECOND LEAST SNOWY DECEMBER TO FEBRUARY PERIOD OCCURRED DURING
THE WINTER OF 1918 TO 1919 WHERE 4.9 INCHES OF SNOW FELL...NEARLY
DOUBLE WHAT FELL DURING DECEMBER 2015 TO FEBRUARY 2016. DURING THE
DECEMBER 2015 TO FEBRUARY 2016 PERIOD ONLY 0.13 INCHES OF
PRECIPITATION FELL AT THE FAIRBANKS AIRPORT WHICH ALSO RANKS AS
THE DRIEST DECEMBER TO FEBRUARY PERIOD ON RECORD. THIS IS ONLY ONE
THIRD OF THE PRECIPITATION THAT FELL DURING THE SECOND DRIEST
DECEMBER TO FEBRUARY PERIOD DURING THE WINTER OF 1935 TO 1936 WHEN
0.35 INCHES OF PRECIPITATION FELL. DESPITE NEAR RECORD SNOWFALL
IN BOTH SEPTEMBER AND NOVEMBER OF THIS WINTER SEASON...SEASON TO
DATE SNOWFALL CURRENTLY 52.6 INCHES IS NOW 3.7 INCHES BELOW THE
NORMAL SEASON TO DATE SNOWFALL ON THE 1ST OF MARCH OF 56.3 INCHES.

FEBRUARY 2016 WAS ALSO VERY WARM WITH NO SEVERE COLD PERIODS. THE
AVERAGE MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE WAS 20.0 DEGREES ABOVE WHICH WAS 10.0
DEGREES ABOVE THE NORMAL MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE OF 10 ABOVE. THIS
RANKED AS THE 11TH WARMEST OF 108 YEARS OR RECORD. THE AVERAGE
MINIMUM TEMPERATURE WAS 4.2 BELOW WHICH WAS 8.5 DEGREES ABOVE THE
NORMAL MINIMUM TEMPERATURE OF 12.7 BELOW. THIS RANKED AS THE 19TH
WARMEST OF 109 YEARS OF RECORD. THE MEAN TEMPERATURE WAS 7.9 ABOVE
WHICH WAS 9.2 DEGREES ABOVE THE NORMAL MEAN TEMPERATURE OF 1.3
DEGREES BELOW. THIS RANKS AS THE 14TH WARMEST OF 108 YEARS OF
RECORD. THE WARMEST TEMPERATURE DURING THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY WAS
42 DEGREES WHICH OCCURRED ON THE 25TH. THE COLDEST TEMPERATURE WAS
21 BELOW WHICH OCCURRED ON THE 19TH.

THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE DECEMBER 2015 TO FEBRUARY 2016 WAS
3.0 DEGREES WHICH RANKS AS THE 8TH WARMEST DECEMBER TO FEBRUARY
PERIOD ON RECORD. 

THE COLDEST TEMPERATURE OF THIS WINTER SEASON REMAINS 29 BELOW
WHICH OCCURRED ON CHRISTMAS 2015. THERE HAS NOT BEEN A 30 BELOW OR
COLDER DAY TO DATE THIS COLD SEASON. THERE HAS ONLY BEEN ONE COLD
SEASON 1976 TO 1977 IN THE CLIMATIC RECORD THAT THE TEMPERATURE
DID NOT REACH 30 BELOW OR COLDER AT FAIRBANKS. THE LATEST FIRST
OCCURRENCE OF 30 BELOW OR COLDER OCCURRED ON THE 27TH OF FEBRUARY
IN 1986 HOWEVER THE LATEST 30 BELOW OR COLDER IN FAIRBANKS OCCURRED
ON THE 3RD OF APRIL IN 1944. THE AVERAGE COLDEST MINIMUM TEMPERATURE
FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH IS 28 BELOW. ON AVERAGE THE TEMPERATURE
FALLS TO 30 BELOW OR COLDER ON TWO DAYS IN MARCH. THE AVERAGE
NUMBER OF 30 BELOW DAYS OR COLDER IN FAIRBANKS FOR A COLD SEASON
IS 25.

LOOKING FORWARD TO MARCH THE TEMPERATURES CLIMB SHARPLY AS THE
SUN ANGLE AND LENGTH OF DAY INCREASES. THE AVERAGE DAILY HIGH
TEMPERATURE INCREASES FROM 18 DEGREES ABOVE ON THE 1ST TO 34
DEGREES ON THE 31ST. THE AVERAGE DAILY LOW TEMPERATURE INCREASES
FROM 9 BELOW ON THE 1ST TO 8 ABOVE ON THE 31ST. OVER THE PAST 108
YEARS THE TEMPERATURES HAVE RANGED FROM 56 ABOVE IN 1994 TO 56
BELOW IN 1911. MARCH IS ON AVERAGE THE DRIEST MONTH IN FAIRBANKS.
NORMAL PRECIPITATION IS 0.25 INCHES WHILE NORMAL SNOW FALL IS 4.9
INCHES. IN SOME YEARS THE SNOW PACK BEGINS TO MELT BY LATE MARCH
ESPECIALLY IN THE URBAN AREAS.

POSSIBLE SUNSHINE INCREASES BY NEARLY 7 MINUTES PER DAY DURING
MARCH INCREASING FROM 10 HOURS AND 12 MINUTES ON THE 1ST TO 13
HOURS AND 35 MINUTES ON THE 31ST.

THE FORECAST FOR MARCH FROM THE CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER CALLS
FOR INCREASED CHANCES FOR ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES AND INCREASED
CHANCES OF BELOW NORMAL PRECIPITATION. 


OBSERVED LAST MONTH...02/2016

                         OBSERVED   RANK
AVG MAX TEMP (F)             20.0   11TH WARMEST OF 108 YEARS
AVG MIN TEMP (F)             -4.2   19TH WARMEST OF 109 YEARS
AVG TEMP (F)                  7.9   14TH WARMEST OF 108 YEARS
TOTAL PRECIP (IN)            0.05   8TH DRIEST OF 105 YEARS
TOTAL SNOW (IN)              0.60   99TH SNOWIEST OF 105 YEARS