Central Alaska - Land Of Extreme Events And Short-Sighted Weather Forecasters

For days, the official weather forecasts for Fairbanks have bordered on the absurd. The forecasters see the warmth not far away, and assume that it means that the temperatures will start warming up soon, but don’t seem to appreciate that there are windows of opportunity for the movement of the warmer air northwards. Once our mid-week opportunity was lost (yesterday), it meant, on average, that another four days would have to pass before getting another opportunity. But the forecasters have never adjusted their forecasts. Warming is always just a day or two away in forecaster la-la land….

Official forecasts currently show warming on Saturday. I’m thinking temperatures will start warming on Sunday, but won’t really be out of the cellar until Monday.

Here is a nice map of current Alaskan temperatures. Some of the temperature gradients between north and south are pretty extreme, but as long as Fairbanks remains in the cold zone, conditions will remain – cold.

Alaska is a land of extremes, and next week’s weather may be a good demonstration. The forecasts I’m looking at seem to suggest temperatures in Fairbanks might approach freezing by Tuesday evening, so the realm of intermediate temperatures (between -20 and 0 F) might be just an evanescent phase. Once the warming seriously starts, it could be rapid.