The month of July may be the record-setting hottest July in historyand Alaska was not left out.
The lightning strike has ignited wildfires across the state, following an unsteady start to the fire season. There are currently more than 140 fires in the active phase, one of which caused an evacuation warning close to Fairbanks.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”There’s fires across the entire area. Around us,” said Craig Eckert meteorologist from the National Weather Service Office in Fairbanks. “There’s too many to explore and explain.”
This time of the year typically is the time of year that marks the beginning of the season of rain for the Interior which slows the spread of wildfires. However, that’s not the case this summer. The forecast for the weekend calls for temperatures close to 90 degrees, as well as Chinook winds that could cause the flames to spread and thick smoke to the extreme.
It’s a span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I can feel it in my throat,” Eckert said. “Even within of the structure .”
July was scorching hot across the majority of Alaska with records-breaking temperatures in a few communities.
Utqiagvik was the hottest month ever recorded. Fairbanks also had the second-hottest July. Its Juneau heat was just behind the summer of 2018 and the year 2019 two years that were a part of the region’s drought.
All this was happening in the midst of a scorching month of heat that swept across The Lower 48 and much of the world. Climate expert Rick Thoman with the University of Alaska Fairbanks has said that climate change is likely to bring warmer summers.
“These types of extremely extreme temperatures are likely to become more frequent,” Thoman said. “But it’s not common to experience really hot weather this late in the year .”
Southeast Alaska flirts with drought
In the Southeast temperatures of the 70s and the low 80s over this week may reach record temperatures, although they won’t likely beat them in most communities. The region is also experiencing extremely dry conditions.
“Across the all of the board, everyone was below the normal amount of precipitation,” said meteorologist Ben Linstid from the National Weather Service Office in Juneau.
Klawock and Yakutat both experienced the dryest July ever as did Juneau as well as Ketchikan each had their fourth dry July.
Scientists are struggling to determine the definition of drought in an extremely humid region, such as that of the Tongass rainforest, however the U.S. drought monitor has identified “abnormally dry” conditions for Southern parts of Southeast that extend beginning at Baronoff Island to Petersburg and southward.
Its style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”So but not close as high as the drought threshold however it’s similar to the warning of the potential for drought,” Thoman said.
This is with the exception of one community. Wrangell is currently in moderate drought because of dry conditions and infrastructure of the city that is aging which includes the city’s sand filtration plant, which is slow in operation, isn’t able to handle water sources, which is limiting the availability of water in dry summers.
The west is soaking wet with rain
A large portion of the state stretching from Anchorage along Kenai Peninsula to Kenai Peninsula into the Southwest mainland was cooled by cool temperatures. Anchorage, Kenai and Kodiak all recorded their coolest July since the year 2012. In that region, and on the west coast of Alaska It was also very wet, with certain communities receiving up to 200% more rain than average.
The variations in the weather were mostly influenced by two fronts that were in opposition. Low pressure systems that dominated the southern part of Bering Sea brought consistent heavy storms from the Western Gulf of Alaska across Southwest Alaska, Southcentral and the Kenai Peninsula. In the meantime, a high pressure system that spanned Alaska’s Yukon Territory and eastern Interior Alaska maintained clear skies with a steady warm temperature.
Thoman stated that the constant heatinstead of a few of hot days is a concern.
It’s a style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”One hot afternoon, it could be extremely hot, but it’s just a matter of time with a whimper,” Thoman said. “When the days are long and endless, we begin to notice the environmental effects .”
In the same way, long periods of warm weather such as this will cause significant changes to ecosystems across the state. Things like warmer oceans and streams and larger fires that burn longer, and melting permafrost.
In the Interior In the Interior, the most severe temperatures are likely to ease by the end of next week. In the Southeast the reprieve could arrive sooner, given cooler temperatures expected for the beginning of next week.
