A heat wave in Nome

By Rick Thoman
Alaska Climate Specialist
Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness
International Arctic Research Center/University of Alaska
Fairbanks

Most of the region has experienced a number of days of very warm weather since the summer solstice. This week's Climate Watch graphic shows the highest temperatures reported during the first five days of July. On the Seward Peninsula and St. Lawrence Island these are the warmest temperatures so far this year (Deering and White Mountain were not available due to FAA weather station outages). For southern and eastern Norton Sound south of Shaktoolik, persistent sea breezes kept temperatures lower than occurred last month around summer solstice. At Nome, July 5 and 6 brought back-to-back days with highs in the 80s for the first time since July 2019. For many communities this was the warmest weather since August 4, 2021. The warm weather was the result of large and warm high pressure aloft that was nearly stationary over the western North Slope for several days. This is a classic pattern for warm summer weather in the Bering Strait region as it allows the movement of warm and dry air from the western Interior into the region and increases the east to northeast low level wind, which reduces the sea breeze for Seward Peninsula communities. This high pressure has weakened, but it's much too early to declare that the warmest weather of the summer has come and gone. It's not at all uncommon for the highest temperatures of the year to occur in late July or even in early August, especially from Nome westward. In the Bering Strait and on St. Lawrence, in some years the warmest air comes not from Alaska but rather warm Siberian air that is pushed eastward by a storm moving from east to east along the northern Chukotka coast.