model depiction of 2m air temperature

Sudden summer: when interior warmth invades coastal Alaska

Thursday’s (6/20/19) high of 73F (23C) in Utqiagvik (Barrow) set a new all-June high temperature record for the station and exemplifies a phenomena I (and I’m sure others) call a coastal temperature spike, though the term has not made it into any meteorological glossaries that I know of. Highs were in the 30s F (~3C) […]

happy skier

Celebrating the end of the snow drought

While some folks back east may have been mightily inconvenienced by recent snows, here in Alaska most people like to see a little snow in the winter. This winter many of us have seen very little. Here in Haines, one of the snowiest sea level towns anywhere, things were looking pretty brown until last week, […]

Skagway, AK meteogram

Sea breezes: an Alaskan spring-summer staple

You’ve heard it said…Alaska has sooo much coastline… We do, about 34,000 miles (54,700 km) worth, and we have the perfect weather phenomenon to go with it: the sea breeze. The sea breeze is a local wind blowing from water to land arising from the relative warmth of the land vs. the water. Warmer land […]