In addition, the new report brings Alaska climate observations up to date through August 2019. New temperature records were set: 2019 was the warmest year in Alaska since 1949, with a mean temperature of 37.4 °F, breaking the previous record set in 2016 by 0.2 degrees. : Days with precipitation - Hours sun. Houston North Pole, © Climate-Data.org / AM OP / OpenStreetMap contributors. Fairbanks is a city with a significant rainfall. Produced by the Alaska Climate Research Center in 2007 by Martha Shulski and Gerd Wendler. Thoman, R. & J. E. Walsh. This is reached around August 08. “If you were to look at a global climate model, the Juneau area would be covered by one or two grid cells. September 2017. With approximately 6,640 miles of coastline, a significant portion of Alaska is influenced by ocean waters and the seasonal distribution of sea ice. Data provided courtesy of ACIS To view data, select a station, and click on any parameters you wish to view, then select the date range. UAS is committed to providing accessible websites: www.uas.alaska.edu/policies/accessibility.html, www.uas.alaska.edu/policies/accessibility.html. Our monthly statewide report for October 2020 is available here. With a land area of more than 570,000 square miles, and the longest coastline of any state, Alaska is larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. For other papers please see our research page. November 19, 2020: Over the past week, the sea ice has now increased from last week by a lower rate of 3.92% from the level on 11/12/2020 of 8.859 M km2 to 9.220 M km2. At about 14.20°C | 57.56°F is the maximum water temperature of the year. The lowest water temperatures per month are reached in February at around -1.00°C | 30.20°F. This generally occurs under clear skies, winds are light, and surface temperatures are extremely low. Climatol., Download it here. : Hours of sunshine. “Our hope,” said Rick Thoman, Alaska Climate Specialist, in a recent interview with Climate.gov, “is that the style and presentation will allow any interested citizen to get a feel for what's been happening in recent years. New temperature records were set: 2019 was the warmest year in Alaska since 1949, with a mean temperature of 37.4 °F, breaking the previous record set in 2016 by 0.2 degrees. High Temp: 67 °F. If a map of Alaska was put over a map of the Lower 48 states, we’d stretch from Savannah, Georgia to Los Angeles, and from the Texas Panhandle to the top of North Dakota. A new "blob", or large area of warm water observed in the Gulf of Alaska, named the Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave of 2019, formed in May 2019 and reached its maximum size in August. It contains 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States, including Denali, the highest peak in North America. Greater snow and ice melt will lead to increases in transportation cost, as ice roads must be replaced with gravel roads. The scale and grandeur of Alaska's terrain can create an impression of changelessness. The lowest water temperatures per month are reached in February at around -1.00°C | 30.20°F. AK wildfire information and smoke forecasts, October 2020 Statewide Report and Cities Summary Available, A Recognized State Climate Office - American Association of State Climatologists. “I often get the question: Why should I use this downscaled data compared to climate products that are already available and might be easier to access? There were 719 fires recorded throughout the warm season; 2.5 mio acres of land burnt. The costs in the transportation sector alone will be significant. The altitude above sea level influences the climate of a given area. 8. Palmer : Hours of sunshine. The spatial resolution of globally-available climate data is typically too coarse (~80 to 100 km) to adequately detect local landscape features, meaning these models aren’t useful for predicting future conditions in Alaska. Orange slanting bars show the trend: the date when the state becomes 50 percent snow covered is arriving a week later in October than it used it, and the spring "snow-off" date—when half the winter snow has melted—is arriving nearly two weeks earlier. All first order stations recorded positive departures from normal annual temperatures. ). Download it here. Alaska's ten coldest years on record (blue dots) all occurred before 1980. January mean minimum temperatures from the Oregon State University PRISM Climate Group; July mean maximum temperatures from the Oregon State University PRISM Climate Group; Local Climate Studies. There were 719 fires recorded throughout the warm season; 2.5 mio acres of land burnt. Alaska’s Changing Environment: documenting Alaska’s physical and biological changes through observations. For more information on this project, contact Rick Lader at rtladerjr@alaska.edu. (The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in late 2018, contains no information beyond 2016 for Alaska). 11. A climate chart for your city, indicating the monthly high temperatures and rainfall. : Hours of sunshine. Afterward click the "View/Refresh Data" button to view your data. The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry. They used a process called downscaling, which takes coarse, global-scale climate models and combines them with local weather data and physical factors like coastlines and elevation to create high-resolution climate projections. Soldotna 13. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976. The climate in Juneau and the southeast panhandle is a mid-latitude oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) in the southern sections and an oceanic, marine subpolar climate (similar to Scotland, or Haida Gwaii), (Köppen Cfc) in the northern parts. 2. But if you’re interested in studying a more complex hazard, where you want other variables like humidity and wind, this new dataset is what you need,” said Lader. Download it here. Alaska's statutory wildfire season was extended from Aug. 31 to Sept 30 because of high fire danger due to continued warm, dry conditions into September. Meanwhile, nine of its ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1980. Given the high latitude environment, the state experiences extreme seasonal variability in solar radiation. Humidity: 70%. These added layers of environmental variables allow scientists and managers to study extreme weather occurrences like atmospheric rivers (multi-day, heavy precipitation events) that can cause flooding, road closures, and mass erosion.