Fairbanks is cleaning up again today, after another round of strong winds produced more power outages just two weeks after the severe wind storm of late July. The latest storm is remarkably similar, consisting of a very strong mid-atmospheric vortex near the Bering Strait and a powerful blast of cold air that raced eastward across the state yesterday and early this morning.
The first map below shows the 500mb analysis from 4am yesterday; compare this to the map from 14 days earlier (second map below). For more on the last storm, see my previous post.
The winds were not as severe with this event as with the last one, but the air mass was colder. Remarkably, the Bethel balloon sounding reported an 850mb temperature of -4.3°C yesterday afternoon, which is one of the lowest measurements this early in the "autumn". Fairbanks measured -3.9°C at 850mb this morning: also a rare level of cold this early, with the only comparable event in the last 40 years being -3.3°C on July 28, 2000.
It's no surprise, then, that snow was falling this morning in Denali NP and no doubt many other elevated locations. And not just a dusting: check out videos and photos below.
This Alabamian woke up to a surprise this morning in Denali National Park in Alaska. About 2-3 inches of snow. @spann @weswyattweather @jillgilardi pic.twitter.com/P54P595ILj
— Riley Johnson (@riley__johnson) August 9, 2022
Rick Thoman reports that this is only the 4th occurrence of accumulating snow at Denali HQ between June 15 and August 15 (data since 1923).
Temperatures dipped just below freezing at the Wonder Lake CRN in Denali NP, and several sites along the Kuskokwim River were below freezing this morning, including 28°F at Sleetmute and 30°F at Kalskag. But it's still summer, albeit the cool variety: Sleetmute was back up to 61°F this afternoon.
Here's a sequence of 850mb temperature maps from 4am Sunday to 4am today.
I was aware of the potential for cold front passage prior to this event. The NWS' prog was for less than the experienced winds, until less than 30 min prior. Nenana had experienced similar winds-35 miles west- yet nothing was offered locally until the cold front was upon us. We lost another 80' white spruce due to the passage. They and and will do better in forecasting winds...over 8,000 GVEA customers were left again w/o power.
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