Winter has suddenly made its presence known with sharply lower temperatures across much of the interior in the past few days, and last night saw widespread -20s Fahrenheit for the first time this season. Click to enlarge:
The perennial cold spot of Chicken saw the state's first -40° this morning, and this is notably earlier than usual. In Chicken itself it is the earliest -40° on record, but data only extends back to 1997; and in 2008 it was -39°F on October 28.
It's interesting to note that the first -20°F in Alaska was only 4 days ago (in Wiseman), and the first -30°F was just yesterday at Chicken.
In Fairbanks-land the usual cold spots did their thing (-28° near Goldstream Creek, -26° at Smith Lake, and -31° over at Salcha), but it was surprisingly cold in the hills too: for instance, -14° at 2150' elevation to the east of Eielson AFB.
Despite the cold, the Tanana River is not quite frozen up at Nenana; patchy ice was still flowing past the webcam today.
However, the Yukon froze up yesterday at Dawson City:
The heights of cold over the surface are remarkable - yes 850mb was reported as being chilly - but aircraft recently departing Fairbanks created visibly condensed exhaust to 1500-2000' AGL and above. Higher and it's hard to see. That's observed at -30-40F ok, but for this time of year is unusual. Normally above 500-1000 AGL when warmer air is encountered exhaust plumes disappear.
ReplyDeleteGary
https://news.uaf.edu/alaskas-all-time-cold-record-turns-40/
ReplyDeleteSomehow with all the current and forecast snow can we be in for another 1970-71 or 1989 winter? Prepare now.
Gary