Higher elevations of the Brooks Range had a taste of wintry weather this morning, with snow falling and accumulating for some hours. Here's a webcam view from Anaktuvuk Pass, which saw about 8 hours of snowfall with temperatures near or just below freezing.
Snow isn't on the horizon just yet farther south, but rain most definitely is - and probably a lot of it. The figure below shows one perspective based on ensemble forecasts from 4 models, including the new AIFS ensemble, which I mentioned the other day. The black line shows the median predicted accumulation of precipitation in Fairbanks over the next 15 days, and the red and blue lines indicate the 75th and 25th percentile of each model's ensemble (i.e. a range of scenarios). All 4 models show median expectations above 2 inches, with most of it falling around Sunday through Tuesday.
Ensemble-mean maps from the ECMWF (IFS) and AIFS systems show widespread amounts of 2-3" or more across much of the interior (although not in the east). For reference, Fairbanks averages 2" for the whole month of August.
Here's the upper-level pattern responsible: as is typical in these events, strong west-southwesterly flow caused by a strong north-south pressure gradient. Let's hope the moisture influx isn't too extreme.
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