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• NOAA WEATHER ANCHORAGE WINDOWS

NOAA WEATHER ANCHORAGE WINDOWS

The smoke has made it difficult for the many people to cool off: air conditioning is rare, and opening the windows is a nonstarter. The smoke from those wildfires has drifted towards the major population centers and choked the air across southern western and interior Alaska, leading to the first ever dense smoke advisory for Anchorage and some of the worst air quality in the world in Anchorage and Fairbanks. NOAA image, based on NOAA/NASA satellite data provided by Worldview. Both Fairbanks, in central Alaska, and Anchorage, on the southern coast, were under the pall, creating unhealthy air quality. Numerous large fires billowed smoke across Alaska on July 8, 2019. Nearly 1,000,000 acres have burned just since July 3. Alaskan wildfires have burned well 1.6 million acres in 2019 through July 14, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordinate Center. The hot temperatures were accompanied by dry conditions, creating the perfect set-up for wildfires. Where to begin? June was the second warmest on record for Alaska. You said this was one of several extreme events going on in Alaska? What are the others? Simply put, record-breaking high temperatures across Alaska are not uncommon nowadays. And starting in the 1990s, record-high temperature have occurred three times as often as record lows. Since the late 1970s, the statewide annual average temperature has being increasing a rate of 0.7☏ per decade. In fact, since the 1950s, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the global average, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment. And Alaska has often been on the forefront of impacts from climate change.

Of course, this heatwave is also occurring against the backdrop of human-caused climate change. However, this year’s El Niño has been weak, making any connection to the current Alaskan heatwave an open question. In a historical context, Alaska has a tendency for warmer than average conditions during the summer when El Niño conditions are present in the equatorial Pacific. NOAA image, based on NCAR/NCEP Reanalysis data provided by ESRL Physical Sciences Division. The 500-millibar pressure level-the altitude at which the air has thinned enough to drop the pressure to 500 millibars-was more than a hundred meters taller than average during the period. A pressure level is the height above the surface at which the air pressure has fallen off to a given threshold, for example, 500 mb.)Ī dome of high pressure squatted over Alaska July 4–8, 2019, keeping temperatures high and skies cloud-free. (Atmospheric pressure generally declines with altitude. Over Anchorage, the average height of the 500mb pressure level in the atmosphere set a July record, and tied the July record in Fairbanks, according to Rick Thoman of Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. What was going on in the atmosphere?Ī large dome of high pressure sat over the region for more than a week, keeping clouds away and allowing for much warmer than average temperatures to persist.

There’s out of the ordinary, and then there is what has been happening in Alaska. And three of those days broke or tied the previous all-time record! The average high temperature from June 27 through July 8 was nearly 81☏, 5.5☏ higher than the previous 12-day record. In Anchorage, the highs have reached 80☏ for a record six consecutive days, doubling the previous record. Through July 10, Juneau saw the high temperature reach at least 70☏ for a record 17 consecutive days. Anchorage, Talkeetna (which saw a July record daily high of 93☏), and King Salmon also observed their warmest week on record.Īnd the anomalous Arctic heat has not been short-lived. The airport reached an astounding, for Alaska, 90☏, breaking the previous all-time record by 5☏! The average temperature in Anchorage during summer is normally in the mid-sixties. On July 4, all-time high temperature records were set in Kenai, Palmer, King Salmon, and Anchorage International Airport. Starting on the Fourth of July and lasting multiple days, temperatures across Alaska were 20 to 30 degrees above average in some locations. Temperatures cooler than 65☏ are shades of blue those warmer than 65☏ are yellow, orange, and red. This animated gif shows the build-up of extremely high daytime high temperatures across Alaska from July 4–8, 2019.