Sunday (January 26) the temperature rose to freezing in Fairbanks, the warmest ever measured for any month from November to March. The same also occurred at Ketchikan where the temperature soared to 53.6°F (12°C), a January record for any location anywhere in the state. Some interior locations have reached record territory. Most incredible is an unofficial report from an automated platform at Boli Lake, south of Delta Junction, which reported 60°F (15.6°C) on January 26. If accurate, this would be just 2°F shy of Alaska’s all-time state monthly record of 62°F (16.7°C) set at Petersburg on January 16, 1981. Of course, Petersburg is on the southeast Alaskan Peninsula where mild Pacific air sometimes intrudes during the winters. Boli Lake is in the heart the Alaskan interior, normally one of the coldest regions in the state during January. The extreme warmth experienced so far this month in Alaska has also been noted in Canada’s Yukon Territory where Carmacks has averaged 22.5°C (40.5°F) above average for the past 10 days. Reykjavik, Iceland is so far experiencing it’s 8th warmest January with records beginning in 1871.
The warmth over Alaska, the Arctic, Greenland, and Iceland, while so cold in the eastern U.S., can be illustrated by this anomaly map of the northern hemisphere forecast for February 1st and produced on January 27th. Note how the polar vortex has been split into two lobes.
Meanwhile, of course, California has seen an unprecedented 14 consecutive days of record-breaking high temperatures including several all-time monthly records such as the 79°F (26.1°C) at downtown Sacramento on January 24th which smashed by 5°F the previous warmest January temperature of 74°F (23.3°C) set on January 12, 2009. Records at downtown Sacramento go back to 1877.
