Climate
RSSClimate in Alaska is the long-term warming of the land, waters and atmosphere. It includes permafrost thaw, sea ice loss, glacier retreat and extreme weather that reshape the state. Research and policy track how these changes affect infrastructure and communities.
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El Nino could become the strongest on record, pointing Alaska toward a warmer winter
El Nino could become the strongest on record, federal forecasters said Thursday. They now give it about a 60% chance of surpassing every El Nino in records going back to 1950.
It's been building all fall, and in Anchorage, fall has hung on. Lawns stayed green for weeks longer than usual. The first hard freeze didn't come until Oct. 22, the second-latest in more than 70 years, and the temperature hasn't dropped to 20 degrees yet. In most years, it has by now.
Forecasts still point to a warmer-than-normal winter for much of Alaska, despite talk this week that the polar vortex has "broken down."
The Climate Prediction Center gives a strong to very strong El Nino better than a 79% chance of lasting through March. A very strong event makes El Nino's usual effects more likely, but not certain, forecasters said.
El Nino starts with unusually warm water in the tropical Pacific, which changes rainfall and winds there and bends the jet stream thousands of miles away.
In winter, it tends to push the storm track south of most of mainland Alaska.
The usual Alaska pattern is a warmer, stormier fall followed by a warmer, drier winter, according to the USDA's Northwest Climate Hub.
Forecasters have expected a strong El Nino since summer. Their winter outlook favors warmer-than-normal weather in eastern Alaska from November through January, with the best odds in Southeast, and drier-than-normal conditions across much of the mainland.
Parts of western Alaska have no clear temperature favorite.
Snow is harder to call. Anchorage has had less than an inch this season, one of the 10 smallest totals for this point in more than 70 years of records, while Bettles had its snowiest October on record.
Extra warmth can turn snow to rain on the coast and at low elevations that hover near freezing, and one or two big storms can make a community's season.
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Latest
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About Climate
Climate in Alaska takes in the long term warming of its land, waters and atmosphere. It includes permafrost thaw, changing sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, glacier retreat and extreme weather.
Research centers on the University of Alaska Fairbanks and NOAA, whose Arctic records and ocean stations track these changes, and on the federal funding that keeps them running. Recurring questions concern streams turned orange by iron released from thawing permafrost, coastal erosion and storms, and how retreating glaciers reshape habitat for seals and leave carbon storing bogs on the ground behind them.
Climate questions reach industry and infrastructure, from flood protection for the oil pipeline to carbon storage plans on the North Slope and power systems designed on outdated weather data. Sea ice that varies from year to year also shapes the timing of walrus and whale hunts on the Arctic coast.
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