PAJN 091353Z 12021G36KT 10SM -RA FEW018 BKN036 OVC050 06/02 A2918 RMK AO2
     PK WND 12036/1349 PRESFR SLP880 P0001 T00560022

PAJN 091453Z 13028G37KT 7SM -RA FEW013 BKN032 OVC045 05/03 A2914 RMK AO2 
     PK WND 13041/1431 SLP867 VIS LWR S-SW P0000 60004 T00500028 58048 

PAJN 091553Z 12022G33KT 3SM -RA FEW013 BKN032 OVC045 05/03 A2912 RMK AO2 
     PK WND 12036/1501 SLP859 P0004 T00500033

What was I missing? Before I could dig deeper, one of the pilots got on the PA and re-educated me, and the whole crowd–mostly seasoned Alaskan flyers with way more weather and aviation savvy than you’d find at a typical airport down south.

The problem was with wind, wind shear, and the resultant turbulence along the departure path rather than at the airport. There are not many options for departing Juneau ( a fact Juneau residents are acutely aware of), and with the full load we had, none that could bypass the areas of channeled winds coming out of the mountain valleys.

The surface chart shows the big picture. A strong low was making its way toward Yakutat, keeping off the coast, but ready to run its front over the panhandle. The map is for about 3 hours before the weather situation we were facing, so the front approaching the coast was probably right on our doorstep. The strong wind with a low like is made very turbulent as it passed between peaks, over ridges and accelerated down channels of the panhandle.

Surface chart for 12z 9 April 2013

A few years ago it would have taken a very careful look at many weather factors and a good amount of local knowledge to call this situation correctly and keep a plane from flying into the jaws of extreme turbulence, without grounding all flights. Now we have the JAWS of life for pilots and passengers: The Juneau Airport Wind System. This system uses an array of wind observations to predict the likelihood of moderate or severe turbulence as would be experienced by a Boeing 737 aircraft. Some of the wind obs are from the airport and surrounding ground-based anemometers, several from ridge and mountaintop anemometers, and a wealth of data streams in from three ground-based profilers, which detect the wind from the surface up through several thousand feet. Computer algorithms based on research aircraft flights flown in various weather situations grind out real time assessments of current turbulence conditions. Here’s what it looked like on the morning of April 9. [At the time I thought it a strong storm for April, but today, May 1 there is similar storm, somewhat weaker, but very vigorous for May, and with severe turbulence again flashing up on the JAWS page! Find the current conditions at http://pajk.arh.noaa.gov/jaws/jaws.php]

Juneau Airport Wind System screen capture for 15z 09 April 2013

Note the  “bottom line” block in the lower left showing any alerts: in this case four of the six areas had severe turbulence expected. The data on this page is well labeled, and there is much more info in the help page, and a good background of the system linked from the help page.

Shortly after our Alaska Airlines crew briefed us on various options, one of which involving lightening the load and using a different departure path, they said conditions had improved and they wanted to load up and take off as soon as possible. No doubt they had a constant eye on the JAWS data, and we climbed above the jagged peaks with only light turbulence. We will never know if the severe turbulence was there a short while earlier. I’m not volunteering to challenge this system. The research has already been done, and from what I know, done well. This is truly a valuable system and a wise investment by the government which has doubtless saved much inconvenience, discomfort and possibly lives.

There’s more. On the descent into Ketchikan, we endured quite a bit of turbulence, easily in the moderate range for much of the time. People applauded after we were safely on the ground. While Ketchikan does not have the mountains around it quite like Juneau, just the strength of the wind over the lower terrain was enough in this case. Here are the METAR obs surrounding the time. Note the 50 kt gusts from the roof of the FAA facility.

SPECI PAKT 091405Z 14022G35KT 6SM -RA BR OVC021 07/07 A2954 RMK AO2 PK WND
     13043/1354 ROOF WIND 12035G50KT P0000 $
PAKT 091453Z 14020G32KT 10SM BKN019 OVC024 07/07 A2949 RMK AO2 PK WND
     13043/1354 RAE09 PRESFR SLP986 ROOF WIND 12035G45KT P0000 60022
     T00670067 58025 $
PAKT 091553Z 14020G28KT 4SM -RA BR OVC021 08/07 A2949 RMK PK WND 13034/1524
     RAB36 SLP985 ROOF WIND 12035G50KT P0001 T00780067 $ VIA AUTODIAL

Here also is the morning balloon sounding from Annette Island, a short distance to the south. The 65 kt (33 m/s) winds matched the winds from the Juneau profilers, but at a much lower altitude!

balloon sounding for 12z 09 April 2013 at Annette Island, AK

Now after the concern for turbulence on coming out of Juneau, then hitting a lot if it (without any prior talk) going into Ketchikan, the crew made sure to warn newly-boarded passengers about turbulence on the continuing southbound takeoff. It was then quite smooth, of course. That’s the weather business for you.

Light

Alaskans now have more daylight than the rest of the country…more than anyone farther south. Here is a table for the 19th and 20th for sunrise, sunset, length of sunup and minutes of change  [data from the US Naval Observatory. note: times are not "corrected" for Daylight Saving Time]:

If you look closely at sunrise-sunset statistics, you may notice several quirks about the equinox.

• The equinox was on the 20th this year and not the 21st, the day of the month I expect for equinoxes and solstices.
• The daylight is not exactly 12 hours long on the equinox.
• The more northerly cities have more daylight hours than the southerly ones.
• The sunrise and sunset are not symmetrical with respect to noon.

I’ll share my explanations at the bottom of the post, so you’ll have time to come up with your own in the meantime if you want to.

The other lights (aurora borealis) & australis

For reasons that have only recently begun to be unraveled, there is historically an increase in aurora activity around the equinoxes. With recent clear weather in many parts of Alaska and the fact that we are near the peak of the 11 year solar activity cycle, now is a good time to get out and look for the lights. In fact, if you don’t get to see the northern lights in the next few weeks your chances might be low for a very long time (unless you live in the very far north or south). Why? First look at the table above. Darkness is vanishing quickly in polar regions. You can’t see the aurora without a dark (and clear) sky. The other ingredient for seeing the arctic/antarctic light show is solar storms. I mentioned we are near the peak of the solar cycle. Yes, but we are apparently past the peak, and the peak was a puny one. The smallest in around a century, actually. (See graph below). Predictions of solar cycles are quite fallible (in 2003 NASA predicted the current maximum would be the strongest in 50 years), but there is fair amount of correlation to past patterns of weak solar cycles, and some signs only observable with modern solar observing instruments point the same way. So, it is possible that the next few solar maxima could be even weaker or virtually absent! By August or September when it is dark enough again in Alaska and other northern areas, the solar activity could be decreased by quite a bit, unless there is a secondary peak as has happened in the past. There will still be auroras, but they will likely be more confined to the high magnetic latitudes, meaning fewer chances to see them even in Bethel, Anchorage and Southeast Alaska, and less likely yet farther south. Nobody knows for sure. Next winter could be good for auroras anyway. But the trend is downward. Time will reveal the specifics.

More Settled Weather?

Much of Alaska has had a break from strong storms lately. This is not uncommon as Winter winds down. So why do people talk about “equinox storms,” coming on strong at this time of year, and also around the Autumn equinox. I have not done a extensive study of whether there is a unusual increase or decrease in storms around the equinoxes, and not sure if anybody has. My experience has led me to think there does tend to be some potent weather systems around the equinoxes, but they are more likely to track farther south at this time of year (not so during the fall) and more likely strike  British Columbia, Washington and perhaps Oregon. One of them recently went through down there. In Alaska, we’re often on the north side of these lows, meaning colder, drier weather but often with outflow winds along the south and SE coasts (example given below). That, in conjunction with somewhat warmer temperatures and increased daylight, sure feels like “more settled” weather. Looking at climate data for wind, I have not found evidence for a “dip” in wind speed in March, just a decrease in keeping with the gradual progression toward the weak weather systems of summer. These two climatological summaries are from weather buoy 35 in the middle of the Bering Sea. The pressure graph does show a jump in pressure in March which fits with lows tracking farther to the south. More info is needed.

average wind speed for Bering Sea buoy, 46035

average sea level pressure at Bering Sea Buoy, 46035

Nenana Ice Classic

It’s the time of year that many Alaskans (and others) put down good money on when the ice will go out on the Tanana River at Nenana. There are many factors that go into when the nine-legged tripod will be carried away with the jumbled ice of breakup. Even if you can figure out all  the factors, you need to place your bet to the minute, a precision impossible even if you had a complete understanding of the processes. So most people buy a bunch of tickets, and then end up sharing any winnings with the many others who guessed the same minute. Hint: don’t guess April 31st. (some do!!). More info at the official NIC website and from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Mass exodus to warmer parts of the globe

While this phenomenon happens sporadically all winter, there is a spike in the number of Alaskans fleeing to Hawaii, Mexico, Arizona etc., corresponding to the local school’s Spring break. Here in Haines, the first ferry south to Juneau (and jet service to far flung destinations) after school is out for the week off is usually packed. This year, unfortunately, it was also cancelled due to high winds in Lynn Canal (some of those outflow winds I mentioned above.)

Back to the sunrise-sunset quirks

• The equinox was on the 20th this year and not the 21st, the day of the month I expect for equinoxes and solstices.

It’s not the equinox that shifts, it is our calendar. The equinoxes and solstices are the unchanging markers of the seasons, since the angle of the sun with respect to the earth’s axis of rotation (the poles) is what creates the seasons. Earlier cultures kept track of the sun and these seasonal markers with inventions such as Stonehenge, sundials, sextants etc. Calendars are convenient ways to keep track the seasons by simply counting the days.  The inconvenient part is that we want to count whole days, but a whole trip around the sun is not a whole number of days…it takes 365.25 days (approximately) to complete one orbit. Another way of putting it, is that at the end of our 365 day “year” we’re not quite back to the same point in the orbit. But we start the new year anyway. Since we start it early, the equinox comes a part of a day later than day counting would indicate.  You can see that with one or more partial day shifts it can shift to the next day (but remember it is the calendar shifting not the equinox). Older calendars got way out of whack because of this, but now we keep resetting it through a complicated system of leap days and even leap seconds. So the equinoxes and solstices appear to shift forward slowly until leap year, when they shift back abruptly. What day they land on also depends on your time zone. For the western hemisphere the Spring equinox rarely falls on the 21st, and probably never in Alaska due to our time zone. The other season markers come later in their months due to variations in month length. Check out the table below and also the Naval Observatory website for more info. [note:  days and times are on chart are in UTC (aka Greenwich Time, Z time etc)]

• The daylight is not exactly 12 hours long on the equinox.

I’ll try to be brief since this is easier. It’s due to atmospheric refraction bending the sun’s light rays so they reach the earth sooner than they otherwise would. Therefore the day is longer than the simple geometry would predict. A standard value for refraction, usually around 1/2 degree, is built in to sunrise sunset predictions. With the strong temperature inversions in the arctic, the refraction is often much greater.

• The more northerly cities have more daylight hours than the southerly ones.

This also relates to the refraction (see previous answer), but adds another dimension. At higher latitudes the path of the sun makes a lower angle with the horizon as it rises or sets. This gives the atmospheric refraction a greater effect on the time of sunrise and sunset, because the same amount of refraction above the horizon translates to a longer path for the “displaced” sun to reach the horizon. The same geometry makes twilight longer in the north.

• The sunrise and sunset are not symmetrical with respect to noon.

There are two factors that cause this:  one political and large, one natural and small. The first is the system of standard time zones used worldwide. Look back at the table of daylight near the top of the post. Fairbanks and Nome are about the same latitude, but the sun comes up and goes down much later in Nome. Of course it is because they are farther west and it just takes longer for the sun to get around there (the earth rotates at 4 minutes per degree of longitude). Again, it is a matter of our clocks shifting, not the sun. If you set the clock back an hour in Nome the would come up close to the same time as in Fairbanks. If you set it back two hours in Nome and one hour in Fairbanks they would both have sunsets close to what local time would give. It is the extra wide time zones we have here in Alaska that skews the clocks with respect to the sun out west, and daylight saving time, no matter how well intentioned, makes the problem worse.

Well, if we went back to using local time, meaning every location’s clocks set based on its longitude, the sunrise and sunset would be close but not exactly symmetrical with respect to noon. That’s because the earth’s orbit is not circular, but slightly elliptical, and consistent with Kepler’s Law, the speed of the earth varies with the distance from the sun. So the seasons and the days are slightly out of synch. This is described by astronomers by the equation of time. The sun appears to get ahead or behind the times by up to around 16 minutes a various times of the year.

If these orbital details don’t make your head swim you might want to check out my printed publication on the matter, the Global SunFinder.

What signs of Spring do you look for or most appreciate? As always, I invite you to use the response link to leave feedback, questions etc.

Winter cold and summer cold?  no. Bitterly cold vs extremely cold?  no. Calm vs windy cold? close.

All these would make good blog subjects, but what I’m thinking about today is domestic cold vs imported cold. Seriously.

I have a good recent example.

Although several coastal areas were in on this latest dramatic weather scene, let’s pick on Skagway again, since the scene was most dramatic there. Continuing a few days of warm weather, with winds mostly southerly and light to moderate in strength, Saturday, Jan 26th turned up the volume a bit: south winds around 25 kts (45 km/hr) and temperature reaching 42F (5.6C). Up until noon anyway. That is when the cold air train arrived from the interior. Winds switched to the north, blew almost immediately around 25 kts again, but with gusts up to 48 kts (89 km/hr), and the temperature started a steep decline, losing 10 degrees in the first hour and 30 Fahrenheit degrees in less than 12. Here’s a graphic:

Here’s some more detail from the ASOS observations. The time column is in AST (the time in the remarks however is in UTC.) Only selected columns and remarks are shown.

day time clouds                  vis wx tm dp wnd       pres
26 0953  FEW032 BKN055 OVC070    10     40 32 21030G35  935  
26 1053  FEW037 BKN050 OVC070    10     40 32 21029G36  934  
26 1153  BKN055 OVC070           10     40 32 21026G36  935  
26 1253  FEW042 OVC055           10 S-  30 20 05020G37  938  
26 1308  FEW042 OVC055            6 S-  28 18 04032G48  934 WSHFT 2148
26 1353  OVC060                   8 S-  25 14 05020G35  942 PRESRR 
26 1453  FEW029 OVC050            9 S-  23  8 04021G36  947  
26 1548  BKN027 BKN034 OVC048     6 S-  19  9 04022G36  950

That is imported cold. Quick and unmerciful. Much worse than locally made cold due to the sudden onset and the wind. By the time the Yukon Express had run its course, Skagwegians were dealing with temperatures down to -5F (-21C) and wind chills around -30F (-34C).  Sure, the actual temperature was somewhat colder than that in the interior, but most people would probably take it over the days of relentless wind. And there is no daytime warming at this time of year like folks down south are used to.

Why can imported cold come on so quickly?

Because “making cold” takes time. But replacing the air on hand with colder air can happen very quickly.

Local cold involves cooling the air that is already in place. Although this happens everywhere at certain times, the polar regions lose heat to space for a living.  It’s a good analogy since the heat loss of the polar regions plays a big part in the earth’s heat economy, the transactions of which creates what we experience as the weather.

Cold cannot be created, but you can consider these polar regions as where cold air masses are created. These areas are called air mass source regions. The term polar is not used here in a strict sense (i.e., poleward of the arctic and antarctic circles), but includes areas that fit the description of world-class heat wasters. Polar oceans lose heat pretty much year round, while large land masses such as Siberia, Canada and Alaska lose it in the winter but gain in the summer (Antarctica is a different case since it is almost completely glaciated, and right over the pole, whereas arctic land masses are a little closer to the equator).

The interior of Alaska is one such cold air mass source region, and cold is considered a natural resource there. Auto manufacturers bring their cars up to see how (if) they function at 40 below or colder. There are several research labs with the word “cold” in their titles. There are ice and snow sculpture competitions and festivals. But Southeast Alaska and other coastal locations are not source regions for cold or warmth. We are receiving regions (I just made that term up). When the severe cold of the interior is pushed (or pulled) down over the panhandle we get a blast of imported cold.

Here’s the surface map (from early Monday morning, the cold air still flowing through the passes)  showing the high pushing from the interior, the low pulling from the Pacific and the tight gradient over the northern panhandle.

Skagway, for all its charms and beauties, is right in the raceway between the interior with its cold, dry air, and the ocean with its warm, moist air. There is precious little in-between weather. This SE cold receiving region is most harsh at Skagway, a bit less so for Haines, and less and less so as you move south and west (away from the continent). Sitka and Ketchikan really are in the banana belt. The northern fjords and some more southerly but inner channels (e.g. Hyder) hardly fit the mild stereotype of the rest. They are colder and snowier in winter and warmer and sunnier in summer, and dryer year-round. And they are first in line when the cold air freight train comes down the mountains with no brakes.

Notice how the more northerly cities are compensated for the shorter days by the faster return of the light (the light-starved folks in Barrow aren’t scheduled to see the sun for another 10 days, at which point they will go from zero to 44 minutes that first day, then gain 28 minutes the next day, with progressively smaller gains after that–the opposite trend of places south of the Arctic Circle.) [If you are as fascinated about the sun-earth geometry as I am, you might want to check out the SunFinder graph I made a few years ago. Something different in this day of websites and handheld apps: a paper chart that reveals patterns and teaches principles the former can't.]

News about the sun

Sunrise…sunset, sunrise…sunset… the epitome of constancy and reliability. But despite the repetitive and predictable nature of the sun’s movements (relative to Earth) from year to year, the sun itself is not unchanging. In fact, the latest trends and understandings about the sun are quite intriguing. First off, for those interested in looking for the aurora borealis, signs are hopeful for a big uptick in solar activity, which has been relatively low for a long time. A large and active group of sunspots has appeared on the sun, and as the sun rotates, will be on the earth-facing side soon, increasing the odds of solar flares that might impact the Earth. See http://www.spaceweather.com/ for more info.

This is significant now because as solar activity waxes and wanes over an 11-year tide-like cycle, the length and strength of these cycles changes on even longer time scales. The reasons and consequences of these changes are subject of many theories, but little demonstrable understanding. But they could be very important to our understanding of the climate. In the current situation, despite the current uptick, solar activity has apparently reached its peak and is dropping off toward the next minimum. The peak arrived earlier and at a lower level than what was forecast by NOAA’s space weather folks. This is strongly suggestive that the sun is dropping into a prolonged era of reduced activity. The following graphs tell the story much better than I can:

This graph shows monthly sunspot numbers since the year 2000. The sinusoidal pattern is evident, but with plenty of noise.  The red line going into the future is the forecast, made well before the latest peak, which predicted the peak occurring around May 2013. It is looking clearer that the peak is behind us and was about 25% lower than forecast. For a longer view, here’s the sunspot graph (from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center) going back to Galileo’s day, when his new telescope enabled the discovery and recording of sunspots:

In your mind you can paste on the latest data from the first graph to the end of this one and see the trend of all the sunspots ever seen by humans. Two facts bear continued investigation: 1) the area mostly void of sunspots labeled Maunder Minimum and the weaker Dalton Minimum of the early 1800s coincide quite well with the Little Ice Age, a cold period experienced in at least the Northern Hemisphere if not globally. 2) The last couple cycles on the chart are eerily similar to the last couple cycles before both of these minima on the chart. Again, I’m not drawing any hard, fast conclusions here, but putting forth some possibilities to consider. This fits in with the other big solar news: the increasing acceptance by scientists of solar-climate connections once trumpeted only by a minority. A recent article by NASA summarizes information presented at a 2011 workshop on solar-climate connections by a large number of top researchers, and although the NASA reporting seems full of caveats not to turn from the orthodoxy that global temperatures are currently influenced more by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and less by natural factors (such as the sun), the underlying research may have more of a turning effect on the debate. The observed slowing/possibly stopping of the global warming trend gives a good reason to look again at the solar connections. [There is more on these topics, with lots of graphics, in a 2-page spread in my 2013 Alaska Weather Calendar, which is now on 1/2 off sale.]

I’d like to hear what’s in your psychological bag of tricks for staying healthy and happy through the winter, or your thoughts on solar cycles, auroras, climate connections, etc.

Let’s look at the weather depiction map from yesterday Morning, courtesy of the Alaska Aviation Weather Unit. A great example, as Gulkana (that’s where the weather station is located), labeled with its 4 letter code PAGK, was the colder than any station except Northway (PAOR)! It was 40 below (Fahrenheit or Celsius, take your pick), colder than Fairbanks at the time and most of the rest of those off the map to the north. Those around it are way warmer, with only Eureka (PAZK) being in the same ballpark. Talkeetna (PATK) and Anchorage (PANC) are not even below zero! Are not all these places in the Southcentral zone?

The rest of the story

There are two factors at work here. One is the weather. It is cold in Glennallen, and it has been colder than usual there this winter (but not only there). They have garnered the state cold spot award more times than usual this winter. The other is perception: it surprises people how cold it is because they think it should be warmer because of where it is located.

First, Glennallen is cold because it is a continental location. This means it is far from the moderating influence of the ocean. This is what throws people, because, as the raven flies, it is only 74 miles (124 km) from Valdez, on Prince William Sound. But the rest of the story, as it so often is with Alaska weather, is the mountains. Look at the Google map with shaded relief showing the mountains:

View Larger Map
What should strike you is the massive mountain barrier along the south coast. This coastal mountain range ranks high among the tallest, most abrupt and least breached coastal ranges anywhere. This wall blocks most of the low-level flow. In summer this flow is mostly from the south, and is moist and somewhat stable. Most of it can’t get inland, and what does dries out a bunch in the process. This is why Glennallen and other interior places enjoy dry, warm summers.

In the winter, when the flow is almost always offshore, and the dry, cold arctic air is extremely stable. Because it is so stable it is not easily pushed over the mountains, and the blocking effect is almost absolute. In this situation, gaps in the barrier–the few passes and valleys that breach the mountains–are the main pressure relief valves. The air rushes through these gaps, such as the Copper River Vally and Thompson Pass to name the two most consequential to human activities, and out to the ocean. But these spigots are not enough to prevent the pressure from building up behind the barrier. As this inland high builds, it can push and hold the arctic air all the way to the mountain barrier, not only unwarmed by the proximity of the Pacific Ocean heat source, but continually cooling via radiation to space. Thus the domain of the continental climate is allowed to get very close to the ocean. This is why Glannallen’s climate is solidly continental (despite that you might see it elsewhere lumped in with Anchorage or Valdez in a “Southcentral” or “transitional” climate zone).

Wait, it gets better

Look again at the Google map. Not only does Glennallen have the Chugach Range to the south, but it is has the Wrangell Mts to the east, the Talkeetna Mts to the west and the Alaska Range to the North. It’s ringed with large mountain ranges! That’s why the region is usually referred to as the Copper River Basin. Talkeetna, by way of comparison, though more northerly, is not nearly as continental because southerly flow can affect it via Cook Inlet and the Susitna Valley, which is wide open compared to the Copper River Valley (gorge might be better word).

Another important factor in frigidity is the local topography…not large mountain ranges, but the actual elevation of a place and its elevation relative to nearby places. The first because high elevation stations tend to be colder due to less moisture and lower air density, and the second is that cold air pools in relatively low areas. Well, Glennallen does well on both accounts. At around 1570 ft (~480 m) it is, despite being in a “basin”, one of the higher elevation towns in Alaska. On the relatively low spot criterian, it is so on a larger scale and less so on a small scale. The town and airport weather station are on raised bluff, well above the river itself. There are those that live in the lower lying areas however, and they probably are aware of the colder winter temperatures, especially on clear calm nights. A year-matched comparison between winter lows at Gulkana (1570 ft) and nearby Gakona (1460 ft and not up on the bluff) shows the latter more than 2 degrees colder than the former. That’s averages over all kinds of weather, so those calm, clear nights have to be that much colder in Gakona, and other places more in dips or valleys.

One more thing: truly calm conditions really let the temperature drop, while even a few knots of wind stirs up the air enough to keep the temperature up a few degrees. This is one reason why Eureka is warmer on the map above and probably most of the time. It is in a pass rather than a basin and at the time of the map had 6-8 kts of wind compared with Glennallen’s 0-3 kts.  Microclimates at work.

The hidden and missing weather stations

Look back at the first map where I declared that Glennallen was the 2nd coldest station on the map. But note the lack of reports east of 145W longitude. Not many people live out in those wild mountains. The point is we have few weather stations in Alaska, especially in the sparsely populated areas. And quite a few important stations do not show up on most maps or listings, usually because they only report once a day (climate stations) or they are unofficial reports from DOT or another agency with no formal crossover with the NWS network. So a cold Glennallen sticks out like a sore thumb, when in reality its not necessarily colder than many places in the region. Thanks to the Internet, it is getting easier to find the “hidden” weather stations (the missing ones are where there really is no reliable data, and too many of those holes still exist). Look at the “mesonet” map below showing 24 hr lows. There are quite a few places around -40 or colder. Also note that while Anchorage doesn’t look too bad on the first map with +4F (-20C) (and an overnight low of -11F(-24C) registered at the Airport), in East Anchorage where the bulk of the population lives, out of the stirring wind lows were as low as -24F (-31C).

To get to this map live go to http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/mesonet.php and click one of the “Mesowest map” links in or at the bottom of the table. When the map comes up mouse rollovers will give you the station name and other info. This is good progress but it still does not access all the stations.

On a personal note

You may note that this is the first blog post since late August. I have not posted a summer review (cold) or a winter forecast (colder) as I had advertised. It is not for lack of desire, but family medical needs came up suddenly that took priority over many things, and the blog had to wait. The publishing and order fulfillment part of the business continues, and other parts are picking back up. I do hope to write more often, and one of my new year’s resolutions will be to learn to write shorter, more frequent posts (that’s what blog is all about right?) I value your feedback and hope you will write in with questions and comments.