The northernmost city in the United States and one of just a few settlements that far north on earth had its rainiest day on record on Tuesday. The same weather system also brought high winds to Fairbanks, where the infrastructure and forests rarely experience such phenomena.
Heavy rainfall is uncommon as the North Slope is a relatively dry ecosystem, with only 5.39 inches of precipitation in an average year. On Tuesday, 1.42 inches of rain fell in Utqiagvik, Alaska F/K/A Barrow. An inch of rain or slightly more has only happened twice since records began in 1920. Rainfall helps the permafrost thaw and methane released into the atmosphere.
From the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post:
Rick Thoman, a climate expert at the University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Center, wrote in an email that the Utqiagvik record was yet another example of intensified precipitation in the state amid a warming climate; he said another top-10 rainfall day occurred in Utqiagvik just last September.
Alaska’s capital, Juneau, recently saw both the wettest January and February on record, while the town of Talkeetna, north of Anchorage, saw the third most precipitation of any summertime two-day period on record earlier this month. And in Fairbanks, the most populous city in the interior of Alaska, an unprecedented December deluge in 2021 made for what was by far the wettest cold-season day on record.
According to Thoman, the North Slope of Alaska — a swath of the northernmost land in the United States — has seen a significant increase in precipitation over the past 50 years. The trend “is surely tied to dramatic decrease in late summer and autumn sea ice,” he wrote. The decrease in sea ice is a well-known symptom of global warming that increases the amount of moisture available to storms in the region.
The same storm that dropped record-setting rain on Utqiagvik also slammed Fairbanks with damaging wind gusts on Monday. The city saw winds gust as high as 44 mph, while nearby Fort Greely and Delta Junction experienced gusts to 56 and 63 mph, respectively. In Fairbanks, a city unaccustomed to winds that would generally cause little damage elsewhere in the United States, the gusts felled hundreds of trees.
Thirty thousand power outages occurred in Fairbanks. The damage was pervasive and not just in the metro area of Fairbanks.
The North Slope was dry in June, according to NOAA.
The Alaska statewide June temperature was 52.2°F, 3.0°F above the long-term average. This ranked as the ninth-warmest June in the 98-year period of record for the state. Temperatures were above average across much of the southern half of the state with record warm temperatures across Kodiak Island. Temperatures were near average across much of the North Slope and Northeast Interior divisions. Sitka had its warmest June on record while Anchorage and Kodiak were second warmest. For the first time on record, Anchorage reported daily high temperatures of at least 60°F every day during June.
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The year-to-date temperature for Alaska was 24.4°F, 3.0°F above the long-term average, ranking in the warmest third of the record for the state. Above-average temperatures were observed across most of the state and were near average across much of the North Slope and Northeast Interior divisions.
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1 million acres burned in Alaska by June 18 — the earliest such occurrence in a year than anytime in the last 32 years. By July 1, 1.85 million acres had been consumed — the second-highest June total on record and the seventh-highest acreage burned for any calendar month on record for Alaska.
The East Fork wildfire in the Yukon River delta region of Alaska is the largest tundra fire on record (since the 1940s) in the Yukon delta at 166,000 acres. Smoke from the ongoing fires created visibility and health concerns across much of mainland Alaska during June.