Volatile in the North

First a follow-up note regarding the late January storm.  I was interested in whether the moisture content of the atmosphere reached record levels for January across southern Alaska; I thought it was quite possible based on the prodigious amounts of precipitation.

Looking at ERA5 reanalysis data, however, it's a null result: the precipitable water only set a new January record (1950-present) over a small area near the southern tip of Kodiak Island.  The January record for much of south-central, the southeastern interior, and also northwestern Alaska was set way back in 1963, and on the 16th of that month (Jan 1963) the statewide daily average precipitable water reached 12.4mm (0.49").  For reference, the recent storm's statewide average atmospheric moisture content peaked at 10.0mm.

On another topic, it's quite notable how volatile temperatures have been in northern Alaska in recent weeks.  Umiat has reached or exceeded 32°F on 4 separate occasions in the past 3 weeks, but has also been as cold as -48°F on the last day of January.  And check out the swings in daily maximum temperature at Utqiaġvik since about the 10th of January.

The chart doesn't show it, but the temperature has plummeted again in the last 36 hours: yesterday morning it was only just below freezing in Utqiaġvik, but this evening it's back down to -20°F.  High winds and blowing snow occurred earlier today.

This volatility reflects a profound clash of contrasting air masses: warm subtropical air has been drawn up from the subtropics repeatedly because of a ridge over the northeastern Pacific, but air temperatures aren't much higher than normal overall in the high Arctic.

In other news from Alaska's far north, there's been another subsurface cable break, apparently again caused by ice scouring on the ocean bed.  This happened only about 18 months ago in almost exactly the same location: see this blog post

https://ak-wx.blogspot.com/2023/09/subsea-cable-fixed.html

I find this rather fascinating, because I would certainly not have expected generally thinner and weaker sea ice (than in former decades) to cause severe ice scouring, exceeding the design expectations of the engineers.

Here are a couple of news links about the latest event:

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/rural-alaska/2025/02/04/beaufort-sea-ice-snips-fiber-optic-cable-limiting-internet-for-some-20000-in-northwest-alaska-until-after-summer/

http://www.nomenugget.com/news/not-nome%E2%80%99s-first-rodeo-dealing-cut-fiber-optic-cable