Last year was the hottest ever seen in Alaska, and Juneau didn\u2019t miss the trend. According to measurements taken by the National Weather Service at Juneau International Airport, the capital city\u2019s average temperature was 44.8 degrees in 2016. That beats the old record, 44.5 degrees, set in 2015.<\/p>\n
Record high annual temperatures were also recorded in Southeast at Sitka, Haines, Skagway, Yakutat and Annette Island, near Ketchikan.<\/p>\n
Accurate measurements have been kept at the airport since 1936.<\/p>\n
Why did Juneau set a new record?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot that goes into that,\u201d said Weather Service forecaster Rick Fritsch, who works in Juneau. \u201cSome of that is inter-annual variability, some of that is climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of Juneau\u2019s record-warm year was driven by warmer waters in the Gulf of Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing they\u2019ve been calling \u2018the blob,\u2019\u201d Fritsch said. \u201cReally what it is \u2014 or was \u2014 was sea-surface temperatures several degrees celsius warmer than they should have been.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of Juneau\u2019s weather comes from the west, driven across the Gulf of Alaska. Warmer water below meant warmer air above.<\/p>\n
In 2016, 75 percent of Juneau\u2019s days had temperatures above normal. In Yakutat, it was 85 percent; in Sitka, 84 percent. An average year should have 50 percent.<\/p>\n
As a result of the warm weather, Juneau saw its second-lowest calendar-year snowfall total.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came very close to setting a record-low snow record,\u201d Fritsch said.<\/p>\n
In 2016 (the second half of the 2015-16 snow season and the first half of the 2016-17 season), the airport measured 27.2 inches.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally, we should be seeing 86 or almost 87 inches,\u201d Fritsch said.<\/p>\n
The record low is 23.4 inches, set in 1987.<\/p>\n
In Juneau, the year was marked by a gradual decline toward average. January, February and March were all at least six degrees above normal; February was 7.5 degrees above normal.<\/p>\n
Starting in April, the deviation began declining, and by September, it was only 1.2 degrees above normal. October, which finished 2.2 degrees below normal \u2014 Juneau enjoyed brilliant sunshine but lacked insulating clouds \u2014 was the first month to average below-normal temperatures since September 2015.<\/p>\n
Temperatures rebounded to 3.6 degrees above normal in November but plummeted to 4.2 degrees below normal in December.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to 2017, the trend is toward a more average temperature year. The warm Gulf waters have receded, and the winter snowpack is deeper than it was last year. Combined, both factors should keep temperatures from reaching their 2016 peaks.<\/p>\n
\nJUNEAU BY THE NUMBERS<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 January: 6.6 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 February: 7.5 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 March: 6.1 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 April: 4.1 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 May: 3.2 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 June: 1.9 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 July: 2.8 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 August: 2.6 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 September: 1.2 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 October: 2.2 degrees below normal<\/p>\n \u2022 November: 3.6 degrees above normal<\/p>\n \u2022 December: 4.2 degrees below normal<\/p>\n LOCATION NEW RECORD OLD RECORD YEAR SET<\/strong><\/p>\n Juneau Airport 44.8 44.5 2015<\/p>\n Annette Island 48.8 49.3 1993<\/p>\n Sitka Airport 48.6 47.4 1993<\/p>\n Haines Airport 44.3 43.7 1981<\/p>\n Skagway Airport 47.1 44.9 2015<\/p>\n Yakutat Airport 44.0 43.7 1981<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last year was the hottest ever seen in Alaska, and Juneau didn\u2019t miss the trend. According to measurements taken by the National Weather Service at Juneau International Airport, the capital city\u2019s average temperature was 44.8 degrees in 2016. That beats the old record, 44.5 degrees, set in 2015. Record high annual temperatures were also recorded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":14618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14617"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}