Outlook for July cooler and wetter than normal

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

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center outlook for July for western Alaska favors the month overall to be cooler and wetter than normal.

Except for the immediate Bering Strait coast and St. Lawrence Island, July has the highest average temperature of any month of the year in the region.

However, in any given summer at Nome, either June or August can turn out to be the mildest month. Because the lingering effects of sea ice keep water temperatures low, June is only rarely the warmest month (typically less than once a decade), but August is not uncommonly milder than July.

Nonetheless, since Nome climate observations moved to the airport in 1946, July has been the warmest month of the year about two-thirds of the time.
July is also the start of the late summer rainy season.

In recent years, July has frequently been very wet. Between 1906 and 2011, July rain exceeded six inches only twice, but since 2012 that has happened three times, including July 2024. The increase in rainy Julys is shown in this week's chart by the dashed line, which is the 11-year average. For most of Nome's long climate record, the 11-year average was generally between two and three inches. However, in recent years the average has crept up to just under four inches. It's of course possible that we'll have a return to more historically typical July rainfall, but with ocean temperatures warming, the chances of soggy Julys will be higher in the future than was the case in the 20th century.