From the Anchorage Daily News, a view into what the weather is like this spring at 61.22N -149.85W
Days turn the corner toward darkness
After solstice today, it’s all downhill to winter
By BETH BRAGG
bbragg@adn.com
(06/20/08 00:39:20)
At 3:59 this afternoon, the sun will reach its northernmost point above the celestial equator and we’ll mark the official summer solstice. Many calendars note the solstice by calling it the first day of summer, but Alaskans know better. Today at 3:59 p.m., Alaska will make a U-turn and head straight toward winter as days start getting shorter.
Which is a shame, seeing how summer so far has been MIA.
We are deep in June and, as of Thursday, the temperature has yet to hit 70 degrees at the National Weather Service’s observation point near the airport, where daily highs and lows are recorded.
It hit 67 on Tuesday near the airport, the highest official reading in Anchorage since the year began.
We haven’t had to wait this long for a 70-degree day since 1993, when the mercury hit the 70s for the first time on June 19th.
Welcome to a record-breaker. Rah.
Could be worse, of course. Could be snowing. That happened in 1998, when solstice revelers spending the night atop Flattop celebrated in a freak snowstorm at 3,500 feet.
Snow or no snow, summer has been slow to arrive in Anchorage.
Beth Schlabaugh, president of the Alaska Master Gardeners Association’s Anchorage chapter, said lots of green things are off kilter because of summer’s delay.
“Definitely we’re seeing a much later season this year,” she said. “Everyone has talked to me about things being two to three weeks behind schedule.”
Roses have been late to break dormancy, she said. Irises and lilacs are only now showing up, and not everywhere. Seeds are slow to germinate.
“Just in my garden, the hostas are slow to come out of the ground,” Schlabaugh said. “Things are really late.”
On the upside, early bloomers like tulips are lasting longer, she said. And if you haven’t limed or thatched your lawn yet, the cool weather means you can do it now even at this late date and still reap the benefits.
The cool weather will be a blessing to runners who will spend Saturday morning running 26.2 miles in the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon.
“Probably the best weather is somewhere between 40 and 60 degrees,” said Will Kimball, a two-time winner of the marathon. “You want cool.”
Kimball is calling this “the summer of the cold breeze.”
“Often it looks pleasant,” he said, “but that breeze has got a cold nip to it.”
Some people think the cool is, well, cool.
“I love this weather,” said Sam Albanese, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. “I’ve been up here 22 years now and as far as I’m concerned, 65 and cloudy is ideal. Seventy degrees and sunshine, and I feel like I’m down in Georgia.”
Albanese offers no promises for those aching for hot, sunny weather. It seemed like summer Tuesday and Wednesday — days that brought sunshine and warmth — but today and tomorrow should be cooler and maybe a bit cloudy.
The forecast for the weekend says it might hit 70 on Sunday — two days after the solstice, and two days closer to winter.
Basil (07:29:33),
See http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/7707Change.html for recent Alaska temperatures. I believe that they are not much adjusted (pre-GISS).
2007 was right at the 1977-2007 average and the short-term trend is down. The long-term trend is flat even though the First Order stations are all on airports, many of which have recently been further developed.
Paul
Actually Pierre, data IS a series of anecdotes best collected under the same conditions in a random fashion, with a control group of data also collected under random conditions. It only becomes scientifically reportable (IE it is verified through repetition, and is reliable through constant calibration) data when analysis is applied.
So technically, reporting on one data point in a scientific study, even one that is published, is really just reporting on an anecdote. All data points are anecdotal until statistically analyzed as a collected mean.
I just checked the weather station. At 12:04 PM, it is 1.9 degrees colder than last year in Enterprise, Oregon. This anecdotal data point is in line with the statistically averaged anecdotal data showing cooler temperature trends compared to last year.
Another anecdotal observation is that it is 75 degrees at 4:40 p.m. in NE Florida in late June.
I LOVE global warming. Bring me more summer days like this, please.
Anthony,
Lurker here. I’m a Yank, but I’m living in NZ right now. What information do you guys need on the NZ weather stations? Travel is a little difficult right now, but I have access to a lot of Kiwis. I’ve also been to Hokitika, though not the airport.
Cheers,
Grant
REPLY: We’ll see if we can find a list with lat/lon that is more precise
Some cold weather in the other hemisphere too – Peru to be precise.
http://www.peruviantimes.com/peru-declares-state-of-emergency-due-to-record-breaking-cold-spell/
Pam,
“All data points are anecdotal until statistically analyzed as a collected mean.”
Precisely! Now you’re telling me what I’ve been preaching.
Again, singling out lone, fringe, fluke points from one side of a scatter diagram and trying to make a trend out of them is the kind of far-fetched “science” we’ve seen on the alarmist side, and it’s what I hope not to see on the skeptic side.
Anthony:
Does this “volume” of cool data indicate it’s getting cooler? Or that we’re looking harder to find and report them?
How many record lows and how many highs were set last year (globally)? And the years before? Has the ratio of record low/record high been getting bigger or smaller over the last years?
Is there a summary of record temps set avaiable for each year to check the record low / record high ratio?
Records will always be set. The question is how many were cold, and how many were hot?
Readers – The meaninglessness of anecdotes.
If someone came to me and said: “Last year twice as many record highs were reported than record lows”, I’d say: “So what! Big deal!” That doesn’t mean anything. But if you add the year before last year had had 6 times as many record highs than lows (i.e. the ratio of hot to cold records got smaller), then it means it’s actually trending cooler.
Finding a record low or high here or there in itself means nothing.
Take a representaive sampling of data at regular time intervals, compute, and plot, and voila! – you get something meaningful.
I like weather extreme reports! When I was a kid, I loved hearing the Mt. Washington report on WMTW TV every evening.
But I think it looks a little weak if we try to discern climate trends from yesterday’s weather. Anyway, I think this dead horse has been beaten enough.
Please do allow me to recommend an outstanding comment on one particular significant trend…in the UK!
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/6/22_Weeping_Into_Their_Cappuccinos.html
” But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.” The power-corrupted Saruman of Many Colours declaiming in J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954, p. 272)]
It is interesting to watch the global temperature practically online:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
From June 9 to June 18 the global at 3000 feet was a bit warmer than last year ( peak at 0 .4 F) on the 20th it is coming below again and is already 0.34 coler than 20th last year.
I guess if global temperature defeats AGW, they will project with force regional data.
Having seen the map provided by Pierre Gosselin ,
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
I can still not understand why there are no comparable maps of CO2 densities. They even have the coral reef bleaching danger maps, which must be CO2 related!! No CO2 that I can find except that July 2003 AIRS map.
Why? there must be something fishy here, glaringly not consistent with IPCC model predictions.
CO2 is like the Holy Spirit, pervading everything unseen.
Continuing on why there are no CO2 maps , I have found a hypothesis.
It is possible that all the CO2 from volcanic activity will show on these maps.
The AGW crowd claim that CO2 from volcanic activity is low, but I keep reading articles of new volcanoes found underwater every month or so. CO2 from these would show obviously on world maps. If on top the time series shows that the CO2 volcanic activity is increasing, there goes anthropogenic global warming.
CO2 continued:
Here is the July 2003 map:
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/Products/CarbonDioxide/
Any volcano experts around?
The red spot in South America looks suspicious. Is it the Amazon forests burning or a volcano? Also the orange spots south east of Japan.
Pierre, I have a feeling part of the reason people like this article about Anchorage and the one about Peru is that every time any odd weather event occurs, you can bet money, you could bet your house, that some news article will blame it on global warming. In today’s paper, there was an editorial by Amy Goodman that made it very clear that the flooding in Iowa was due to global warming, and we had better stop looking for more oil and figure out how to drop emissions to zero if we don’t want to destroy the planet. So when there is a counter example to that sort of nonsense, I think people want to point it out.
I don’t mind those anecdotal reports at all. The cool reports sure make me wish I could afford a summer home in the north part of the US, though.
I’ll take trout fishing tips, also, anytime they come down the pike. Pamela, how ’bout a cricket on that hook to get some vibra-action (a technical term) going in that murky water? Would the Rainbows have any interest?
A recent catch: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6555439
click the image for the larger view
Pierre Gosselin (06:36:00) :
OT: “I like weather extreme reports! When I was a kid, I loved hearing the Mt. Washington report on WMTW TV every evening.”
You probably haven’t heard that Marty has retired and that the transmitter is no longer manned fulltime. A bit of local color is no more.
Folks at the Weather Observatory do radio spots for some radio stations, but it just isn’t the same – no thick Maine accent, no cat walking across the script, no forced goofy smile at the end. Oh – you have to watch the last “Marty on the Mountain” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNATQANryFc
However, extreme weather is forever, a better report than the MWO radio spots is at http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/comments/ . Not the same, but I check it out during interesting weather down heyr.
[…] Anchorage sets new record for latest high temp day – still waiting for 70 […]
In Northern California, the recent weather (the past few weeks) has been similar to what we normally experience in very late summer or early fall. It could be a blip … or not.
Ric Werme,
Thanks!!
I suppose this means more of those incredibly annoying “tougher in Alaska” ads. 🙁
Crossposted at CA:
Anthony/Steve: Is this the sort of metadata you need out of NZ? For example, at Hokitika:
http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wstn.sensor_his?cagent=3909
Grant thats it for sure thanks!
Joe, I went out the very next day and caught a 15 plus inch trout in the same deep pool right near shore, with the same cheap ass pole, one sinker, and just a worm cut in half. The water was even murkier, higher, and faster. I would show it to you but I already ate it. I’m going out again today with my just graduated from college son. I’ll let him fish in the same hole first. But by God we will be taking turns.
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