High wind warnings for the northwest coast as Arctic logs warmest summer since 1950

The National Weather Service in Fairbanks has issued high surf advisories for the Western Arctic and Northwest Arctic coasts, Kotzebue Sound, the Bering Strait coast including Shishmaref, and the Southern Seward Peninsula coast. Water levels are expected to run 2 to 5 feet above the normal high tide line, the level the tide usually reaches at its highest, from Wednesday into Saturday, with localized beach erosion possible.

Two High Wind Warnings now cover the same coast, replacing a watch the office cancelled Tuesday. A watch means such winds are possible. A warning means the office expects them. The Western Arctic Coast warning forecasts southwest winds of 30 to 45 mph with gusts to 65 mph from 4 a.m. Thursday to 4 p.m. Friday. A second, issued Tuesday afternoon, covers Shishmaref, the Bering Strait Coast, Diomede and St. Lawrence Island from 10 p.m. Wednesday. Both say high winds may damage property and cause power outages, and both urge people to secure loose objects.

The Arctic as a whole recorded its warmest summer since 1950 this year, while the waters off Alaska's northwest coast ran colder than normal. That split is the central finding of the Arctic Summer 2026 Climate Review, posted Tuesday in the Alaska and Arctic Climate Newsletter by Rick Thoman, climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"For the Arctic overall (land and seas poleward of 60°N), the average temperature for the summer was the highest since 1950, edging out 2016 and 2023," Thoman wrote, citing ERA5 reanalysis data, the Copernicus Climate Data Store record behind every comparison in the review. Average Arctic summer temperatures have risen about 1.5 degrees Celsius since the 1980s. About 75 percent of lands and seas north of 60°N ran above the 1991-2020 baseline. Roughly 12 percent of the Arctic had its warmest summer since 1950. About 1 percent, all over the Arctic Ocean, had its coolest.

Summer sea surface temperatures were below normal from the eastern East Siberian Sea eastward through the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, continuing a pattern of recent years. Those temperatures reflect, to a significant degree, when sea ice was lost relative to the usual date. The area within about 1,100 kilometers of the North Pole had its coolest summer since 2014, even as northwest Siberia, central Siberia and Nunavut each set records.

Elsewhere, Beliy Island in northwest Siberia hit 28.3 degrees Celsius (83 degrees Fahrenheit) on June 25, apparently the highest on record that far north.

Arctic-wide precipitation was 2 percent above average. Deficits in the Northwest Territories and the central and western Asian Arctic correlated with high wildfire activity. North of 80°N, precipitation and snowfall were the highest since 1950. Extreme short-term rainfall, some of it falling in just one to five days, drove river flooding across parts of southcentral Alaska in July.