Warmth Persisting

I'm in the middle of a busy stretch of travel and work, so posts will be remain infrequent for the next week or so.  A brief comment is in order here, however: Alaska's statewide temperature index has now been significantly above normal for two weeks, making this the longest spell of well-above-normal temperatures for more than a year.  The change from cool to anomalously warm in late summer and autumn seemed a bit tentative at first, but now it appears that warmth is becoming more entrenched.

The NSIDC IMS snow cover analysis shows a widespread lack of snow over southwestern Alaska and even parts of the central interior, although a quick perusal of FAA webcams seems to suggest the snow-free area may not be as expansive as the IMS data indicates.

Taking the IMS data at face value, this is the first time the snow extent has been below 1 million km² on this date since at least 2003, i.e. it's a record low for the time of year based on this short period of record.

I'll revisit the October climate anomalies when NOAA publishes its monthly data, but for now we can observe that a high-pressure ridge was a dominant feature over southern Alaska for the third month in a row.

Temperatures were most anomalously warm in the northwest, and that's also where precipitation was most significantly above normal; but most of the state from the northern Gulf Coast northward was relatively warm and wet.