"Ask a Climatologist"

66 degrees at the Annette Island Airport on Sunday, January 14 is the state record for a high temperature anywhere in Alaska in the month of January.

2017 was the 13th warmest year on record in Alaska.

December has been remarkably warm across Alaska.

Alaska is likely to stay warm this month, while much of the Lower 48 experiences a cold snap. The culprit is a feature of the jet stream called a Rossby wave.

Ice in the Chukchi Sea is at a record low for this time of year, by a wide margin.

In Alaska, big fall storms are often associated with the jet stream.

Weather conditions aren’t a driver of when fall colors appear, but weather events can drive the extent, duration and intensity of fall colors.

Fairbanks gets the first freeze of the season about a week early.

If you took all that water that has just fallen on Harris County and you put it right over the urban part of Anchorage it would be about 60 or 70 feet deep. It’s an extraordinary amount of water that’s fallen.

Most places in Alaska are wetter than normal for August, but it’s been especially rainy in Ketchikan.